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THE PEACEMAKER 


A TREATISE ON 

PRESENT CONDITIONS IN THE 
UNITED STATES 

By JOHN F; HENKLE 


The Social, Economic, Political, 
Labor, and other Problems which 
confront the citizens of this coun¬ 
try, and the only solution thereof 


Price, $2.00 


CHICAGO 

1904 
















... 
















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PREFACE. 


The National Peacemaker is dedicated to 
the reading* and thinking* public of North Amer¬ 
ica. The rough ashlars contained herein may 
seem too jagged to sensitive minds, but if they 
will stop to consider that some of our citizens 
must be roughly handled to cause them to think 
and then act, we hope a justification can be 
maintained for our crude treatment of the sub¬ 
jects reviewed. 

The idea of the various matters under con¬ 
sideration is to arouse an interest in the minds 
of all free men and women in North America 
for the betterment of the present and future 
generations in their material welfare. So far 
as we know, no previous writer has attempted to 
offer a feasible and practical way whereby the 
laborer can hope to receive the fruits of his la¬ 
bors and at the same time protect property and 
capital, which we think we have shown. 

After reading The National Peacemaker 
please advise the undersigned, by mail, of your 
criticisms and suggestions, in as concise form as 
possible. If the press would send us a copy of 
the issue containing notice of The National 
Peacemaker, we will consider it a great favor 
bestowed upon us. 

Fraternally, 

JOHN F. HENKLE. 

917 VV. Forty-seventh Place, Chicago, Ill. 














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INTRODUCTION. 


Halt! Ere we as a people become engaged in 
fratricidal war. Stop. Consider, ere reason 
becomes dethroned, and rashness, urged on by 
our selfish interests, turns unrest into chaotic 
disorder or civil war. Look at the fierce bat¬ 
tles now being carried on—while more or less 
governed by law and order—between the vari¬ 
ous labor organizations as to supremacy and 
against capital for the mastery. Yes; look at 
the battles royal that are ever and anon being 
waged between the capitalistic classes, for sel¬ 
fish motives only, and then ask yourself if it 
is not high time to call a halt. Consider! 

Not another political subdivision of the 
earth’s surface enjoys as many and varied utili¬ 
ties and advantages as do the people of the 
United States, and yet for the want of proper 
and wise considerations they are the most tu¬ 
multuous, dissatisfied, and—seeing they have a 
sovereign remedy—they are surely the most 
derelict in concerted action that will insure 


6 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


quiet, peace, and happiness, not only for our 
own beloved land, but incidentally be the means 
of ameliorating the conditions among the peo¬ 
ple of all civilizations. 

It will not be time misspent to direct our 
thoughts back to colonial times. Passing over 
many of the jealousies that existed among 
them, and coming down to the time when they 
formed articles of confederation, we find a 
heterogeneous people scattered along the east¬ 
ern portion of what now is a small part of the 
United States. Their mode of interchange of 
commodities, ideas and visits were governed 
by the most primitive methods. They knew 
little as individuals of even the people of the 
colony in which they happened to reside, and 
far less of other colonies in the confederation. 
If the politicians of those earlier days had been 
able to collect money to run the confederacy, 
it is extremely doubtful if they would ever 
have urged their constituents to form a con¬ 
stitution to take the place of the articles of 
confederation, and perhaps we would still be 
living under that federation to this day. Poli¬ 
ticians will never take the initiatory, but have 
to be driven by dire necessity to act in favor 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 7 


of the masses. In proof of this assertion, we 
will quote Article V. of the Constitution of 
the United States: “The Congress, whenever 
two-thirds of both houses shall deem it neces¬ 
sary, shall propose amendments to this Consti¬ 
tution, or, on the application of the legislatures 
of two-thirds of the several states, shall call 
a convention for proposing amendments, which, 
in either case, shall be valid to all intents and 
purposes, as a part of this Constitution, when 
ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of 
the several states, or by convention in three- 
fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode 
of ratification may be proposed by the Con¬ 
gress ; provided, that no amendment, which 
may be made prior to the year one thousand 
eight hundred and eight, shall in any manner 
affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth 
section of the first article; and that no state, 
without its consent, shall be deprived of its 
equal suffrage in the Senate. ” Those great 
Solons who framed the Constitution of the 
United States were careful to keep the amend¬ 
ing power thereof in the hands of the politi¬ 
cians, and nothing short of an overwhelming 
demand on the part of the people will ever 


8 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


wrest it from them. This should be the duty of 
the people regardless of party affiliations. It is 
true they started out in the preamble of the 
Constitution with the declaration that, “We, 
the people of the United States,in order to form 
a more perfect union, establish justice, insure 
domestic tranquillity, provide for the common 
defense, promote the general welfare, and se¬ 
cure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and 
our posterity, do ordain and establish this Con¬ 
stitution for the United States of America.’’ 
This will show the reader that w T e must rely 
upon the declaration in the preamble, for it 
declares that “We, the people,” not we, the 
states or we, anybody else, do form this Consti¬ 
tution, for our warrant to amend the Constitu¬ 
tion without the circumlocution of the Con¬ 
gress. It is likely that the politicians of all the 
past used like platitudes to catch the eye of the 
masses, and then reserved to themselves and 
their subsequent followers the right to amend 
the instrument, but in our case the Supreme 
Court of the United States have established the 
preamble of the Constitution a part thereof, and 
by virtue thereof have affirmed that the people 
are the sovereigns of these United States. 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 9 


Therefore, it is for the people to say whether 
they will amend the present Federal Consti¬ 
tution or create a new one to take its place; 
they, the people, are the sovereigns from whose 
decision there is no appeal. If the people of 
the various colonies had then been as homoge¬ 
neous as they are to-day, and had as many ad 
vantages of intercourse as we have, it is fair 
to suppose that they would have merged these 
colonies into one nation instead of converting 
them into several states as they did. If such a 
condition should have obtained, then there 
would never have been a call for such a book 
as this. But we must take conditions as we 
find them, and if they are inconsistent we 
should immediately find a remedy. In our 
case we have a sure, peaceable and perfect legal 
right as a sovereign people to correct the evil 
that all must confess should be done at once, 
for the happiness and tranquillity of our peo¬ 
ple. The poor may rail at the rich until dooms¬ 
day, and the capitalist may claim that the poor 
are inconsistent and unreasonable in their de¬ 
mands, but this will not give rest to the na¬ 
tion or remedy the defects. It would be well 
for all parties in interest to understand that 


10 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


we have the most perfect system it is in the 
power of man to create for the purpose of cre¬ 
ating capitalistic barons at the present time. 
If such is the wish of the reader then he should 
exert all his energy toward the maintenance of 
our present complex system of state legisla¬ 
tures, for nothing is wanting. But, if none are 
so selfish then all should energetically strive to 
merge all political power in a truly representa¬ 
tive nation—one in which all citizens would be 
compelled to exercise the right of franchise 
under drastic penalties for non-performance of 
duty. It is a debatable question whether it 
would be better to amend the present Constitu¬ 
tion of the United States to give all legislative 
power to the Congress or form a new Constitu¬ 
tion and have it adopted by a vote of the peo¬ 
ple, or by convention. One thing is certain that 
one or the other mode must soon be adopted to 
insure tranquillity among our people or a state 
of anarchy will beget a fratricidal war of more 
magnitude than ever has been known in the his¬ 
tory of man. He who can complacently view 
the combinations that are taking place in all 
branches of industry as well as of labor, in all 
its ramifications is surely an optimist whose 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 11 


vision is obtuse indeed. But why flounder any 
longer when we know that a large majority of 
our citizens are convinced that the Congress 
and the Exchequer of the United States could 
supply statutes broad enough to .reach all our 
civil, military and naval needs for our whole 
people, to our better satisfaction than the forty- 
five states do now. State statutes are fast los¬ 
ing the support and confidence of the masses— 
and justly so, too; and the State courts are not 
held in that reverential awe they were in days 
of yore, but not so with the enactments of the 
Congress or Exchequer, nor the respect of the 
judicial decisions of the United States courts. 
It is estimated that of the criminals who are 
caught—having disobeyed the laws of the Fed¬ 
eral government, at least ninety per cent of 
the number plead guilty. Perhaps the main 
reason for this is because political pull has no 
weight with the courts of the United States. 
In State courts it often happens that the judge 
on the bench—even in equity cases—decides for 
the litigant who is supposed to have the great¬ 
est political pull, and against the fundamental 
principle of the law; yes, it has come to that 
pass in many state courts that the lawyer or 


12 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


solicitor may show his client what his rights 
are in law or at equity, and the client may fur¬ 
nish ample proof to sustain his case or cause, 
and by indubitable and unimpeachable testi¬ 
mony, and yet the trial judge viciously . and 
sneeringly decides adversely. Very little scan¬ 
dal has ever been traced to the judges of the 
United States courts, but not so with those 
of the State courts, as anyone who has the en¬ 
tree into the offices and society of lawyers can 
testify. One would think that any man who 
had the legal knowledge capable to fill the of¬ 
fice of judge would feel it his bounden duty to 
administer it impartially, but the facts do not 
confirm the supposition. Some lay it to com¬ 
mercialism, some to too much political pres¬ 
sure, and some to a vanity superinduced by the 
deference paid them by the legal fraternity, to 
wealth and social position; but be the cause 
what it may, to the mind of an honest person, 
he is the vilest wretch to be found in the wa¬ 
ters, on the land, or that flies the air, and should 
be dumped into the dead sea of oblivion. The 
public can smile at the trickery of lawyers and 
solicitors, but when a judge can be found .who 
will brazenly condone his acts of perfidy* it is 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 13 


high time that the people rise in their might 
and change the organic law so that such vil¬ 
lainy will not and can not continue. There is 
an auxiliary of the judiciary that should be 
radically remodeled, namely, masters-in-chan- 
cery. The present mode of providing this judi¬ 
cial side door is for the trial judge to appoint a 
lawyer for a specific cause or to appoint one to 
act during his (the judge’s) term of office. All 
masters-in-chancery should be elected for life 
or during good behavior and paid a salary out 
of the public treasury; this might extend to the 
court stenographer. 

As a nation we are honest, but as individuals 
we are so bound up in self that it almost 
amounts to criminal intent to do wrong. To 
be satisfied we must feel that we are getting the 
best end of the bargain at all times. Now, if 
as a nation we are honest, it shows that we, as' 
individuals, have some redeeming qualities. 
Would it not be wise and prudent to enlarge 
this national quality, and perhaps more of us 
would become honest in all our dealings? 
Would it not be a good idea for the secular 
press to devote more space to the discussion of 
this matter than they have heretofore done, 


14 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


even if it would dimmish the space devoted to 
capital and labor that now crowds their col¬ 
umns ? It is true that man could dispense with 
the use of capital and still exist—as it is only 
a medium for the exchange of commodities and 
service—but labor is indispensable and co-ex- 
istent with life itself. He who sneers at labor, 
be it of brawn or brain, is too imbecile to be 
counted one of the component parts when mak¬ 
ing up a nation—poor, pitiable creature, we feel 
sorry for such an one. 


STATES’ LAWS. 

The United States is composed of forty-five 
sovereign states, with a full complement of ex¬ 
ecutive, legislative and judiciary, in which each 
executes, legislates and adjudicates for the peo¬ 
ple within their boundaries to the exclusion of 
all other states; the only supervision they have 
to fear is the criticism of a free press and the 
restraint vouchsafed by the Constitution of the 
Federal government which curtails their pow¬ 
ers to within their boundaries and yet—para¬ 
doxical as it may seem—lets them, through cor¬ 
poration acts, overlap all states and territories 



THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 15 


and ramify tlie commercial world. Take the 
railroads of America—they are national in ex¬ 
tent and yet they are the creatures of state 
legislatures; again, some states, for pecuniary 
reasons, enact such liberal corporation laws 
that the denizens of other states go to them to 
procure charters and then rely on the comity 
of states to give them legal protection in all 
other states; thus we see a see-saw game con¬ 
stantly being played to the profit of the legal 
fraternity and the annoyance of the judiciary— 
and all to be paid for by the general public. 
Waste! Waste! Waste! And no way to remedy 
matters so long as we retain our complex sys¬ 
tem of governments. The intelligent public 
cannot help seeing that the simplest way to cor¬ 
rect this evil would be to either amend the Fed¬ 
eral constitution so that all laws would be en¬ 
acted by the Congress or Exchequer and place 
in abeyance all state laws or form a new Con¬ 
stitution for all our people, in which the citi¬ 
zens would become unified and consolidated 
into one whole nation. Too many of our state 
legislatures are corrupt or imbecile, but if they 
were saints, the time has come to relegate them 
to history. Yes, we could even forego the pleas- 


16 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


ure of having a governor and his staff, to act 
as headpiece at celebrations, and still live. 
Many will say that it would be cheaper to im¬ 
provise a demigod for each occasion than to 
continue our present economic blunders much 
longer. There may be a few benighted fossils 
who may yet fear to consolidate all executive, 
legislative, and judicial power in the nation, 
but if they will think a little and read on, they 
may have the bandage torn from their mind’s 
eye before we close. 

NATIONAL LIBERTY. 

Liberty regulated by law will be safe when 
the servants of the people are all elected by a 
direct vote of all the citizens. It is silly to 
suppose that the elector has sense enough to 
vote intelligent as to who should be the proper 
person to serve as President or Governor, and 
not be able to choose a proper person to act 
as policeman. A nation, at best, can only be 
a fictitious idealism presumed to be able to 
unify our whole populace for the happiness, 
security, and benefit of each individual, and as 
such represent our single and united interests 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 17 


in the family of nations. The only right that 
will justify a free people in adopting a con¬ 
stitution is that all persons may be equally pro¬ 
tected in their natural freedom, and anything 
that can be better or more economically done 
for the individual by the nation should in all 
reason be the active business of the nation to 
perform. When each unit is properly pro¬ 
tected by the co-operation of the whole, then 
will the fabric be able to withstand internal 
jars or external connivance of other nations. 
There is a general and wide misunderstanding 
as to the laws of these United States, by a large 
majority of the people of the old world, for 
they suppose we enjoy unbounded freedom, and 
when those who arrive here find they have been 
led to harbor erroneous ideas, they are com¬ 
pletely at sea—they soon find that what is law 
in one state is different in another. In mechan¬ 
ics, when an old machine is worn out or it has 
been superseded by a more perfect invention, 
it is relegated to the scrap pile. Would it not 
be better to consign the state constitutions to 
the rag merchant in imitation of the old ma¬ 
chine which has outlasted its usefulness? They 
could be replaced by a single constitution that 


18 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


would answer our purpose much better and far 
cheaper as well as more satisfactory to our¬ 
selves and perhaps to other nations. Nations 
have arisen and fallen and will continue to do 
so under any form of government that may be 
formulated, until they realize the fact that gov¬ 
ernments like individuals must learn to keep 
in touch with the era of their existence. In no 
other way can a political subdivision of peo¬ 
ple hope to shun oblivion. The complex laws 
of our country are a century behind the at¬ 
tainments obtained in any other branch of hu¬ 
man endeavor among us. Perhaps the reason 
is because the people in their mad strife for 
increasing property and accumulating money, 
neglect to seek an organic law commensurate 
with the object to be attained. The whole peo¬ 
ple should understand that in a free country 
each is responsible for a good or bad organic 
law, and that there is no way to shift or neg¬ 
lect the responsibility without incurring the 
ignominy of the future historian, for they will 
weigh our intelligence by our actions or inac¬ 
tions. Our people have been passing through 
a formative state, and as we enjoyed boundless 
opportunities and a seeming inexhaustive area 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER iy 


of fertile land to give remunerative employ¬ 
ment to our ever increasing millions, we neg¬ 
lected state and national affairs or—which is 
about the same thing—delegated those to make, 
execute and adjudicate the laws who had not 
the genius to keep abreast with the develop¬ 
ment that was being attained in other sciences. 
The sooner our whole people realize that they 
are the real sovereigns and it is to self-interest 
for them to not rely upon party candidates to 
protect and amplify our rights, the better. Ask 
a hundred men at random this question “Had 
not the laws in the United States better be uni¬ 
form all over our domain ? ’ ’ and at least ninety 
will answer “Yes.” Then, think you that it 
would take a great effort to have the laws to 
conform to the wishes of so large a majority? 

THE EXCHEQUER, ITS POWERS, ETC. 

A Constitution is an organic compromise 
written by some one who can blend into articles 
and sections such ideas as a majority of a con¬ 
vention will ratify and therefore has never been 
an entirety. Of course, the writer has heard 
the ideas of all the delegates expressed, and it 


20 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


becomes his duty to come as near giving ex¬ 
pression to all of those ideas as is possible, hav¬ 
ing in view the subject matter. This being the 
case there should be a periodical time stated 
in every constitution when a convention should 
be elected to cancel or amend any article or 
section, or perhaps enlarge the same as time 
had shown to be best for our whole people. 
Don’t lose sight of the fact that as a nation 
we are honest, and your fear for holding a con¬ 
stitutional convention at stated times will van¬ 
ish. Years of patient study has convinced the 
writer that we should have another co-ordinate 
branch in our government to be called the Ex¬ 
chequer, which should be elected at large—say, 
seven for seven years; seven for fourteen years, 
and seven for twenty-one years, and that once 
in seven years thereafter seven new members, 
plus all vacancies, should be elected for a full 
term and to fill out unexpired time. Nolle 
should be younger than thirty-five years of age 
at the time of election, nor should any of them 
be permitted to engage either directly or indi¬ 
rectly in any commercial enterprise whatsover 
during incumbency. To this body of persons 
delegate the sole power to raise and expend 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 21 


money for public purposes and ratify treaties, 
as is now done by the Senate. How can we ex¬ 
pect a congressman who is elected for two 
years to construct a satisfactory tariff or a just 
income tax? There is another reason for such 
a small body and that is that they could always 
be in session and ever ready to act, as well as 
giving them time to become proficient in the 
subject matters—no small subject. 

The acts of the Exchequer should not be sub¬ 
ject to the veto power of the President as the 
acts of the Congress are, for the idea is to di¬ 
vorce this body from the domain of politics so 
that they could be as free to act as the United 
States judiciary now is in the purview of their 
sphere. Of course, the Exchequer would im¬ 
mediately create a number of departments and 
assign a competent chief clerk over each so that 
they would be relieved of the details of the 
business. These several departments would be 
required to make daily reports to the Ex¬ 
chequer through the Exchequer’s proper com¬ 
mittees, so that each day the sitting body would 
be able to give additional orders to any de¬ 
partment that might need them. Twenty-one 
persons could not attend to the details of the 


22 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


business of the country, but they could pass 
upon them when properly tabulated. We should 
expect some time to elapse before all the de¬ 
partments could be got in good working order. 
Time and patience would cure all the initiatory 
defects, and soon a practical system would be 
evolved that would work in harmony in all its 
parts. Should this body find that any duty as¬ 
signed to it could be better looked after by the 
Congress, or that some matters that were dele¬ 
gated to the Congress that should of right be 
under their jurisdiction, they could refer it 
to the next constitutional convention for reme¬ 
dial action. This is one of the reasons for mak¬ 
ing it compulsory to hold a constitutional con¬ 
vention every ten years. We cannot be ex¬ 
pected to foresee what the wants of the people 
may require in the distant future. If those 
great minds who framed the Federal Constitu¬ 
tion had known the wants of the future, it is 
fair to suppose those patriots would have en¬ 
deavored to find some solution of the mat¬ 
ter, but they, like us, were not prophets. All 
our lives we find that our preconceived notions 
are very apt to be found wanting when the time 
and circumstance arrive when we are called 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 23 


upon to use them; therefore, we think it is wise 
to fix a periodical remedy by the people elect¬ 
ing a constitutional convention to look after ex¬ 
igencies that will arise from time to time. It 
may be asked in all candor why we wish to 
create an Exchequer with co-ordinate powers, 
instead of creating a commission who shall 
from time to time report to the Congress, so 
that that body could take it up and debate it 
in all its bearings before it was enacted into 
law. The answers that could be given for not 
so doing would enlarge this work beyond the 
bounds we had intended to go. However, it is 
a thought that will suggest itself to many pa¬ 
triotic men, and should receive due considera¬ 
tion. 

First of all, a commission is always more or 
less a political body without power to act fur¬ 
ther than report to a superior body. Their 
term of office ends when they report; they are 
not held responsible for their report; their 
existence is transitory and irresponsible, and 
even if made permanent as a commission, could 
not and would not be held in that respect that 
a co-ordinate branch of the government would 
be. They would not have that incentive to dis- 


24 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


criminate as acutely as a responsible body; 
they would not be required to abstain from all 
commercial life in any of its forms, nor di¬ 
vorce this body from all politics—they are nu¬ 
merous enough to give due consideration to 
all the business of the nation and not so many 
that they could not act promptly. The trinity 
idea of government has never given the satis¬ 
faction we have a right to expect neither in the 
states nor the general government, and while 
human nature is imperfect it never will. The 
Congress is a large body, and, unfortunately, a 
dependent body; it is not a business body, but 
an affirmative and negative body that can never 
work in harmony—except in times of great ex¬ 
igency or dire calamity. Each member is con¬ 
trolled to a greater or less extent by a few of 
his constituents, so they are not free to act in 
accordance with their judgment. No, this re¬ 
ligious trinity idea must admit a fourth co¬ 
ordinate body. Many men are living who can 
remember that the business of the country was 
stagnated by a change in our national adminis¬ 
tration. Untried men always affect the busi¬ 
ness of the country to our detriment. Then, 
why not give constitutional direction to busi- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 25 


ness and create a business body to execute it— 
the Exchequer? 

As we proceed, the powers proposed to be 
delegated to the Exchequer will be more fully 
noted. 

All municipalities, semi-public and private 
corporations, should receive their powers and 
be under the supervision of the Exchequer (1) 
because to this body should be delegated the 
power of equalizing the proceeds of capital and 
labor, (2) because twenty-one-year terms give 
the members thereof a better insight to the 
wants and necessities of the people than could 
be expected of those who were elected for a 
shorter term of office, and, (3) because they 
would have revisionary powers that could be 
exercised at once, etc., etc. Municipal corpora¬ 
tions should be classified and defined by the ex¬ 
chequer by a general set of rules, so that all 
municipalities of the same class would be uni¬ 
form, so that a citizen going from one to reside 
in another would find no great difference in the 
ordinances. It is presumed that if the councils 
of municipalities expected that their acts were 
to be supervised by a national body, they would 
be more cautious as to what they enacted, and 


26 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


more vigilant in seeing those acts more faith¬ 
fully executed than has been the case hereto¬ 
fore, and would, no doubt, be more economical 
in the spending of their revenues. 

The Exchequer should set the salaries of all 
officers and employes of cities, towns and vil¬ 
lages, as well as those of township and coun¬ 
ties, and they should be uniform in each class. 

The scandal that has been unearthed from 
time to time by spasmodic upheavals of the 
public—leaving out of the account the many 
that have never been brought to light—calls 
for radical changes in municipal governments 
to the end that they be conducted on the prin¬ 
ciples of justice for the citizens and not for the 
“grafter and ward heeler.” There is nothing 
in municipal life that should make it impossible 
to have citizens governed by justice and equity 
so that all could feel secure in life and property 
no more than that of rural denizens. Semi¬ 
public corporations are of two classes, being 
those which transport commodities and per¬ 
sons and those which confine themselves to 
the transportation of persons only. The for¬ 
mer is of national consideration, while the lat¬ 
ter is local in its character and as yet has been 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 27 


found only economic in more or less densely 
populated districts; hence, for the present they 
are in the embryo state and, not of the general 
importance of the former. The steam railroads, 
steamboats—when run in connection with 
steam railroads—telegraph, telephone and ex¬ 
press business, stock yards and warehouses, 
should be merged into one corporation and, as 
it would be a quasi-public corporation, the peo¬ 
ple should elect one-half of the directorate. It 
should be organized upon a semi-military basis 
and all the employes should be enlisted for a 
stated time with the privilege of re-enlisting 
for a subsequent term or terms, if their service 
had been creditable. The rate of toll should 
be loaded for the purpose of paying for unfore¬ 
seen accidents, and this fund or any part there¬ 
of remaining, after a stated time and, not being 
needed for such accidents, should be divided 
pro rata among all the employes—this would 
give them a monied interest in the economic 
management of the properties. Nothing ap¬ 
peals so directly to one’s vigilance as a direct 
and sure interest in the business of his em¬ 
ployer, as a monied interest beyond that of his 
daily pay. Not only does it appeal to one’s 


28 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


selfishness but it infuses a watchfulness on the 
part of self and co-employes to the betterment 
of the service for the common carrier as well as 
for the general public’s safety. The rate of toll 
should be equal to all shippers and should be 
rated by the distance plus the handling and 
switching charges. Where shippers and con¬ 
signees handle the consignment the handling 
should not be charged in the bill of lading. It 
is evident to any practical person that it is 
worth more in proportion to take a single car 
of freight to a way station and switch it out 
of the train than to set in a whole train, hence 
it is reasonable to charge for switching at the 
rate as compared with the service performed. 

The salaries of all officers and directors 
should be fixed by the Exchequer and they— 
the Exchequer—should classify the employes 
and also define the maximum and minimum 
wage for each class, having in view the time of 
service as well as kind of employment. Con¬ 
venient stations for the handling—receiving 
and discharging—of freight should be insisted 
upon where bills of lading can be had and 
freight charges paid. At the present time all 
large cities are inadequately supplied with 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 29 


these stations, so that patrons of railroads are 
put to great inconvenience and unnecessary ex¬ 
pense in this regard. A radical change should 
be effected immediately. 

The reason assigned for wanting the tele¬ 
graph and telephone services merged into the 
railroad business is so that one set of officers 
could more economically conduct the business, 
and that at present it is impractical to operate 
a railroad without the use of these modern ap¬ 
pliances. Perhaps the public would get better 
and more satisfactory service than at present. 
Again, these properties having proven so con¬ 
venient and useful and indispensable to the 
common carrier and the business interest of 
the nation, it is concluded that they should be 
conducted on as economic principles as possible 
and finally be the property of the nation. The 
rate of toll should be such as to give a sum 
sufficient to retire all cost of the properties in 
fifty years and pay 2y 2 per cent dividend, pay¬ 
able quarterly, on the real value of these sev¬ 
eral properties, as determined by the engineer 
corps of the Army and pay for destruction and 
accidents fund—in fine, surrender to the gov¬ 
ernment the entire properties fully paid for, so 


30 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


it could commence and carry on the common 
carrier business at a minimum cost to the pub¬ 
lic, at the expiration of fifty years. 

NATIONAL OWNERSHIP OP RAILROADS, 
ETC. 

Some honestly think that the nation should 
immediately acquire title to the railroads and 
operate them, and that thereby could conserve 
the interests of the people better than to wait 
any number of years to do so. But it is doubted 
if those immediate advocates take into consid¬ 
eration the vastness of the undertaking or the 
difficulty at present of operating them econom¬ 
ically. Individuals and corporations have long 
since found that all business to be success¬ 
ful, must be shorn of politics; therefore, in in¬ 
augurating any economic enterprise which must 
of necessity partake, at the present time, of 
more or less a political aspect, caution at least 
would suggest giving time to devise a system 
that would not be so open to criticism. When 
we consider the official scandal that is being 
unearthed in high and low officialdom at the 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 31 


present time, it behooves us to consider well 
any radical change of such vital import. 

By electing one-half of the directorate of 
common carriers from among the people, we 
have taken as radical an advance as prudence 
could ask for, especially when we consider that 
in a half century the nation will be able to have 
grown up and become familiarized with the 
business. Various other reasons for deferring 
present ownership will suggest themselves to 
a thoughtful public without further enumera¬ 
tion. Some over-solicitous persons may feel a 
repugnance in granting power to enlist the 
employes under a semi-military form of em¬ 
ployment, but if they consider the vital im¬ 
portance the railroad business bears to the very 
life of a majority of our citizens, they will 
see the necessity warrants extraordinary pre¬ 
caution to the end that no self-appointed en¬ 
thusiast nor inimical organization could par¬ 
alyze these arteries of commercial life. All 
with sane minds must admit that so long as 
the peoples of the earth in their political sub¬ 
divisions maintain a military organization, 
those of a republic must do likewise to insure 
respect and to act when our lives or property 


32 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


are in danger. These are conditions over which 
we have but a small control, and therefore it 
behooves us to always be ready to assert our 
manhood and protect our nation. We might 
say that our lives and national honor are pro¬ 
tected by the army and navy and not be far 
from the truth nor open to criticism. Now, if 
this is the case, are we not justified in demand¬ 
ing that those who transport the necessities of 
life as well as those of comfort, be held to per¬ 
form that duty by a lenient military rule? 
Surely the transportation of commodities and 
that of persons should be safeguarded with all 
the care possible to the end that as few incon¬ 
veniences and risks to limb and life as the in¬ 
genuity of man can devise, and, above all, we 
should be safeguarded from internal turmoil or 
outside, machinations of a sinister character as 
far as possible. If one set of officers had con¬ 
trol of all carriers of commodities, intelligence, 
and persons as is contemplated, they could and 
would minimize the expense of conducting the 
business. All communities have an excrescence 
that vegetates and exudates upon the body 
politic a discordant and virulent exhalation of 
the most fetid poison if their advice and coun- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 33 


sel has not been first asked and obtained, be¬ 
fore any departure from beaten paths are sug¬ 
gested, and they are so filled with self-esteem 
and pomposity that they make the atmosphere 
blue with their denunciations and inopportune 
criticism, but their brain is so microscopical and 
their automatic tongue vibrations are so illogi¬ 
cal that the practical public seldom gives ear 
or heed to their vituperations. They are of 
that semi-insane class from which hobos are 
recruited, and yet with their brass always 
brightly burnished they can be seen and heard 
at all gatherings. Some of these creatures can 
sing a catchy ditty, while others are given to 
an over-abundance of gab, so that the thought¬ 
less part of the gathering will tolerate their 
audacity and sometimes cheer their illogical 
vampings. Of course, the foregoing class are 
not presumed to be affected by the reading of 
anything that may be contained in this book, 
for they are naturally incapacitated for serious 
reflection on any subject, much less upon one 
of the magnitude of that under discussion. The 
only reason they have been referred to is be¬ 
cause they can be found in all avocations of 


34 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


life, hence the reader’s attention is called to 
them in advance. 

BANKING AND INSURANCE. 

The nation should do all the banking busi¬ 
ness, with power to have branches in foreign 
countries where we have treaty relations that 
would permit of its doing so. In sparsely set¬ 
tled districts and villages the repositories 
should be an adjunct of the Post Office so that 
all citizens could have equal facilities to de¬ 
posit funds. The officers of each repository 
should be elected by the depositors, and they 
be held as security to the nation for the officers ’ 
faithful performance of their duties. The de¬ 
positors would be extremely careful who re¬ 
ceived his or her vote if they knew, in advance, 
that they were going on the candidate’s bond 
to secure the nation from any loss from any 
cause by the party they were voting for. Of 
course, this need not be carried to extremes, 
such as loss by fire, burglary, or those termed 
“acts of God.” The whole business should be 
under the management of the Exchequer, and, 
it is presumed, that that body would issue such 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 35 


stringent rules for the guidance of all reposi¬ 
tories and the ever-expecting appearance of an 
authorized auditor from the Exchequer that 
loss by misfeasance or malfeasance or embez¬ 
zlement in office would rarely occur. Pho¬ 
tography has become so universal and cheap 
that each depositor could have his or her pic¬ 
ture taken on a part of his or her bank book so 
he or she could be identified and check cashed 
or honored at any repository, which would be a 
great convenience over present methods. After 
a reasonable time no person or corporation 
should have a right to collect at law or in equity 
for any debt where cash was the consideration. 
This would soon shut out the money sharks. 
The government should allow 2 per cent on 
all balances and charge 5 per cent on all loans. 
It may be urged that this would curtail a nat¬ 
ural right that all are presumed to be endowed 
with, but we answer no more so than that of 
the Post Office business which is handled ex¬ 
clusively by the nation. Of course, it would be 
prudent to take over the assets and assume the 
liabilities of those monied institutions as they 
might be found to exist at the time the Gov¬ 
ernment assumed the duties of custodian, so 


36 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


there need be no run on those institutions at the 
time of the change. The nation should in¬ 
sure property of all kinds from loss by what¬ 
ever method—damaged or destroyed—that may 
happen, and should assess the loss upon other 
property—except that of design or gross negli¬ 
gence in the owner and natural deterioration. 
To conceive of a civilized nation without prop¬ 
erty, either in individual hands, corporate or 
in communal condition, is beyond natural com¬ 
prehension. So we realize property to be a ne¬ 
cessity and as such a part of a nation, and that 
to an extent any loss or damage property may 
receive is a national loss and therefore should 
be borne in a major part by the nation. Nearly 
all of our people insure their property, and in 
doing so disclose the full value of the same to 
the insurance agent. Now, if the government 
did all the insurance it could refer to its insur¬ 
ance books to find out what the party or parties 
should be taxed for local and national purposes, 
with a reasonable assurance that the taxation 
would be just and equitable. One thing can 
be said against this paternal idea and that is 
that the government could not be reimbursed 
instantly for any outlay in this department, but 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 37 


that would be mitigated in a measure by the ac¬ 
tivity superinduced by reimbursing the party 
who sustained the loss. For a time dishonest 
parties would, no doubt, take this method to 
sell out, but ere long this would become so 
hazardous that those losses would rarely occur. 
Take, for instance, the farming business, as it 
is one of the most precarious, would it not be 
better for those who this year have full crops 
to pay a reasonable amount to those who have 
sustained a partial or total failure, so that they 
may receive some compensation for their time 
and labor, so that they in turn could be reim¬ 
bursed when they had a like failure. 

Private insurance companies are hedged 
about with too many technicalities for prac¬ 
tical purposes to make one feel that security 
one would like, but when a nation takes hold a 
simple and inexpensive form could embody 
rules and regulations that could be understood 
by all classes. Some may contend that this is 
encroaching upon socialism and therefore 
should not be considered for fear of encourag¬ 
ing socialism. To those timid people it is only 
necessary to say that good things never hurt, 
no matter from whence they come, and it is 


38 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


always wise to absorb them without being too 
particular as to their source. One of the rea¬ 
sons that socialism does not make a greater im¬ 
pression at the present time upon our people is 
that between our present development and their 
ideal there is an interim that they have never 
bridged. No doubt the socialist is honest in 
his belief, but under present conditions he is 
impractical. The anarchist may be honest in 
decrying against all law, but he is impractical. 
Nature is governed by law, and man with all 
his genius is unwise to think that he can be 
governed without law. His sole aim should be 
to make the law a help to civilization rather 
than a hindrance. But we may be asked if the 
nation goes into the insurance business upon 
this grand scale, what will become of the insur¬ 
ance companies now in existence. In answer 
we will say (1) that of the help they employ 
the nation could use the experts; (2) that their 
capital could be employed in other useful ways; 
(3) that their printed matter could be disposed 
of to the rag merchant, and that their other 
personal property would no doubt find sale at 
some price, and, as for their stockholders they 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 39 


would find they could soon read of fire losses 
without losing their nerves. 

At the present time, and under the present 
mode of fire-underwriting, no insurance com¬ 
pany in operation could successfully meet a suc¬ 
cession of large losses such as that of the de¬ 
struction by fire of large cities, but if the nation 
were doing the business and could spread the 
losses upon all the property of the whole na¬ 
tion, there is no question but that all losses 
would be paid promptly. The cost of doing the 
business could be done for 10 per cent of the 
present mode of procuring the risks. The na¬ 
tion could make and enforce rules for the 
construction of buildings, etc., that would les¬ 
sen losses that companies cannot for obvious 
reasons insist upon, and thereby lessen the 
losses. 


TERMS OF OFFICERS, ETC. 

The Exchequer should every three months 
change chairmen and the same for that allotted 
time should be a member of the Cabinet with 
the right to a seat in the same. They should 
rotate in holding the chairmanship, so in the 


40 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


course of time each member would have at 
some time been the chairman. This rotating 
would go a long way toward unifying the body 
and keep jealousies from existing among them, 
and keep politics out of their administration. 
The Constitution should provide for electing 
all officers by a direct ballot and it should also 
provide how an officer could be voted out of 
office before his or her elected time has ex¬ 
pired by a three-fifths vote of the electors. 
Nothing would be more apt to keep an officer 
in a strict line of duty than the knowledge that 
his or her constituents could determine his or 
her tenure of office at their pleasure, nor would 
a court dare to interfere to continue an officer 
in office after the people had voted the officer 
out. This should extend to all officers except 
those of the Exchequer. The President, Vice 
President and Senators should be elected for 
seven years.. Presidents should not be eligible 
for more than one term and should thereafter 
be life Senators. The reason for this innovation 
is that as the presidents, as such, gain knowl¬ 
edge by virtue of their position that would be 
of vast service to the nation in more ways than 
one, the nation has an inherent right to their 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 41 


services through life. We have bestowed upon 
such all the honors we possess and in return 
should receive the reward for so doing of a life¬ 
time. None would seek a re-election because 
that would be impossible and each would strive 
to make their administration contrast favorably 
with that of former presidents and they would 
no doubt prove valuable Nestors to the Sen¬ 
ate. It may be said the nation should not de¬ 
prive itself of the right to elect any person as 
often as the majority might see fit or desired to 
do so. In answer we will say that after one is 
elected to the exalted office of president that 
partyism should cease and patriotism of a na¬ 
tional character begin. The history of the 
presidents of the United States will show that 
many of them did or left undone many things 
for the purpose of being re-elected to a second 
term, so it is deemed best to give those incum¬ 
bents in the start to understand that it is one 
term and out. However, this matter is of minor 
interest, and has only been suggested as an 
improvement on our present mode of treating 
our presidents. 

The representatives should be elected every 
three and a half years, and at that time and 


42 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


place one-fourth of the Senators should be 
elected for seven years. The present mode of 
electing the Congress keeps it in a constant tur¬ 
moil so that the nation does not get that high 
order of service it would if they were elected 
for a longer term. The pay of those national 
officers should be ample so that the nation 
could command the services of the brightest 
minds we possess. It is presumed that when we 
abolish the appointive privilege that now ex¬ 
ists, and deny that right to be reinstated, we 
will find that less persons can do the necessary 
legislation, for their time would not be taken 
up in seeking office for their constituents nor 
will the congressman be in constant dread that 
some of those who have been supplied with 
places of trust might go wrong. Twenty sen¬ 
ators and twice that number of representatives, 
elected at large on the cumulative plan, should 
be a sufficiency. The person who received the 
greatest number of votes should be the pro 
tern president of the Senate and House of Rep¬ 
resentatives respectively. This mode would do 
away with the wrangles that are often seen in 
those bodies. There is a great amount of time 
often taken up in wrangling over the presiding 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 43 


officer which could be saved by the people elect¬ 
ing the presiding officer, and, as it is the peo¬ 
ple’s time and money they are wasting, they— 
the people—have a right to say who shall hold 
that office. This, of course, should only have 
reference to the Congress. 

MUNICIPALITIES. 

We now come to municipalities. First, we 
have the township as the unit of our nation’s 
political sub-division and, while in some locali¬ 
ties they are called parishes, it makes little dif¬ 
ference, for their rights and duties are substan¬ 
tially the same and will be treated as such. 

Local self-government is not inconsistent in 
a land of freedom, but even here there should 
be metes and bounds, and these should emanate 
from the Exchequer. The officers of townships, 
villages, towns and cities, as well as counties, 
should be under the same close scrutiny as the 
officers of Congress, so that the electors could 
exercise a vigilance over them, and if they—- 
the officers—are found wanting the electors 
could terminate their official existence and elect 
another or others in their stead. We create too 


44 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


many offices and support too many officers for 
the amount of service we receive from them. 
All civil officers should be elected from among 
that class of citizens whose parents were nat¬ 
ural born citizens of North America, and none 
other—except in cases where no such citizens 
reside in the municipality who could success¬ 
fully pass an examination proving their quali¬ 
fications to hold said office. Whenever any vil¬ 
lage, town or city becomes as large as the town¬ 
ship, then the township municipality should 
cease and the other govern. As far as possible 
all direct taxes should be expended for the 
benefit of the property from whence it came, es¬ 
pecially of realty. Assessors never fail to put 
a round valuation upon unimproved real estate 
for taxation purposes, but the spending board 
seldom considers it necessary to expend the 
taxes thus procured for the benefit of the prop¬ 
erty from whence it came. This is not equit¬ 
able and should be corrected. However, when 
our local officers find that a national officer is 
likely to order a more equitable expenditure 
than has been done in the past, there is likely 
to be a revolution in former methods for the 
better in the future. The people should define 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 45 


that section of the national constitution which 
makes forever binding the validity of contracts 
legally entered into, by giving it metes and 
bounds. Municipalities should not be permit¬ 
ted to irrevocably bind future generations to an 
individual or corporation so that they could not 
abrogate the same when it would inure to the 
advantage of the citizens of the municipality. 
Public utilities grow into the life of urban ex¬ 
istence to that extent that they should be ob¬ 
tained by the citizen at a minimum cost. No 
value should ever be considered as emanating 
from a charter or franchise, for these intangible 
grants have been procured by fraud if they 
have cost anything to the grantee. Perhaps it 
may be necessary for new municipalities to of¬ 
fer capital inducements to inaugurate a semi¬ 
public utility, or for old ones who have sus¬ 
tained some unforeseen calamity to do so, but 
that should not be irrevocable when munici¬ 
pal conditions have changed so that less ex¬ 
pensive modes could be inaugurated. It is one 
of the fundamental duties of all nations and 
municipalities to transport persons and get 
commodities from the producer to the consumer 
at as small a cost as possible, and, this funda- 


46 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


mental principle should supersede all other con¬ 
siderations in the material life of the body poli¬ 
tic. But, say the members of the company, ‘ ‘ we 
furnished the capital to make the utility pos¬ 
sible, why should not we enjoy our dividends 
in peace?” Yes, we grant you furnished the 
capital and that it was yours, and that you had 
a right to invest it in said utility or not as you 
saw fit, but you should admit that you have 
been reaping an annual reward, and we do 
not wish to deprive you of your principal out¬ 
lay for tangible property, but you must admit 
that we have secured that capital to you, for 
if you had been as strong as a Samson you 
could not have secured your private capital 
without our assistance. It is the tranquillity 
of the community which we produce that gives 
you and your capital security. Remember this, 
that the state grants to no one absolute and 
indefeasible ownership of any kind of prop¬ 
erty, and that it has not for long, long ages. 
The state has an inherent right to tax your 
property for public uses, and if a time should 
come and that dire necessity should arise in 
which the state needed your capital it would 
take it all. It is the tranquillity and prosper- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 47 


ity of the masses that makes your capital valu¬ 
able and safe, or at all secure; therefore, think 
not that you are being used unfairly. 

EDUCATION. 

The Exchequer should contain an educational 
branch and it should have sole control of the 
education of minors. No sectarianism or any 
dogmas of any sect should be taught in any of 
the national schools. The arts and sciences 
alone should be taught to minors, and of that 
number who disclose extraordinary aptitude in 
mastering any useful knowledge, they should 
be permitted—at their election—to continue 
under the tutorage of the nation after major¬ 
ity free of cost to them. When we as a people 
acknowledge that it is better for the rising 
generation to be a ward of the nation as is now 
recognized by the courts, the masses will have 
advanced in civilization far beyond the present 
benighted times. The courts for a long time 
have taken cognizance of the minor, and while 
it is true that it recognizes the right of the pa¬ 
rent to have the direction of the child during 
minority, the courts have ever been ready to 


48 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


interfere in the child’s behalf when to do 
so is for the minor’s interest or the state’s pro¬ 
tection. So you see the principle is old and 
well founded and in declaring that the nation 
should have the exclusive right to educate its 
minors is merely amplifying an old and ven¬ 
erated principle and prerogative of the state. 
The germ—the minor—is the unit from which 
the political body must be composed in the fu¬ 
ture and upon which the state must depend for 
future existence, hence, it is self-evident that 
the nation has an inherent and indefeasible 
right to so culture that germ that the nation 
may hope to reach a higher plane in national 
existence in the future. The life of an indi¬ 
vidual is precarious and uncertain as to time, 
but that of a nation founded upon the funda¬ 
mental principle of right is for all time. We 
keep dropping back to the dust of the earth and 
are soon forgotten, but the nation lives on, and 
there can be given no logical reason why it 
should not do all in its power to increase its 
possibilities for a higher idealism. Supersti¬ 
tion may for a time clog the progress of a 
semi-civilized people in their national life, but 
as they gradually unfold and become cosmopoli- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 49 


tan, the light of knowledge will soon dispel the 
gloom and let in the rays so that man to man 
will be a constant brother. Among those who 
have, through their progenitors, been inhabi¬ 
tants of North America and enjoyed the bene¬ 
fits of our free school systems this idea will 
easily find a second, but perhaps among many 
galvanized citizens the idea will be found re¬ 
pugnant, and for that reason, if for no other, 
the education of minors should be under a non¬ 
political and non-sectarian body. Our object 
should be to do the best we can for our own 
people and in the most direct way, for econ¬ 
omy’s sake if no other. The young have plas¬ 
tic brains, and if their minds and bodies were 
properly and systematically looked after dur¬ 
ing minority, few, indeed, would become other 
than useful citizens. Much criminality that 
now disturbs society would cease to exist if the 
youth were to grow up under the tutorage of 
those only who had the proper knowledge of 
the arts and sciences and especially a natural 
aptitude for imparting the same to the pupil. 
Nature is very prolific and kind to the human 
species and gives us great numbers of people 
endowed naturally with the various kinds of 


50 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


gifts which enables us to always find many per¬ 
sons capable of filling the multitudinous posi¬ 
tions that civilization demands, and of those 
who naturally have the gift to interest and im¬ 
part knowledge to the young she is not want¬ 
ing, hence none others should be employed than 
those who prove they possess this gift. If those 
who persistently recommend persons as teach¬ 
ers could realize that it is not enough that the 
persons recommended have the learning neces¬ 
sary, but that they should have the natural gift 
to impart it to the pupil, they would be more 
careful in their recommendations and less fer¬ 
vent in their solicitations. It is not right to 
the youth to give any consideration to the ne¬ 
cessities of the applicant in hiring a teacher, 
but solely to their entire fitness to impart 
knowledge to others. The young prefer the as¬ 
sociation of those of their own age to a marked 
degree, and yet there are adults who can easily 
gain the confidence of the young so that they 
can ever be welcome to their society. Now, if 
the educational bureau would engage those pe¬ 
culiar persons to associate with the young dur¬ 
ing their vacation, recreation-liours, they would 
no doubt do much to interest the youth in use- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 51 


ful thoughts and healthful occupation of their 
time, and there is a probability that they 
through the children could be of great service 
to the police force in giving them tips as to 
the location of criminals and where they store 
their plunder. Of course, this could not be ex¬ 
pected to apply in any other than densely pop¬ 
ulated districts, and yet those so gifted could, 
as occasion required, be sent into sparsely pop¬ 
ulated districts when officers are hunting for 
fleeing robbers, murderers and absconders, to 
great advantage, for all detectives soon learn 
that the children are the shrewdest observers 
of strangers and unusual circumstances. School- 
houses are paid for by the adult population and 
they should have the use of the buildings for 
lectures, debates and such other gatherings as 
they may desire as a matter of course when not 
in use for school purposes. On this neutral 
ground all citizens would feel at home, know¬ 
ing that all had a direct interest in the building 
and its preservation. The nation should con¬ 
duct colleges and universities in convenient lo¬ 
calities, and if by so doing those endowed elee¬ 
mosynary institutions should suffer for want 
of patronage they should escheat to the nation 


52 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


with all their endowments, no matter what pro¬ 
vision the grantor attached to the bequest. It 
is presumed that the endower had in view the 
advancement of general intelligence when the 
trust was created, therefore no violence could 
be charged, for the trust would be carried out 
in a more scientific manner and on a higher 
plane than the donor had anticipated. 

MEDICAL DEPARTMENT. 

The Exchequer should have a medical de¬ 
partment which should ramify our whole coun¬ 
try—the island dependencies as well—in which 
medical colleges should be maintained where 
all schools of medical practice should be taught 
to pupils. While the colleges should be under 
the jurisdiction of the Exchequer, the medical 
graduates should have the sole right to elect 
the faculty for the colleges. The faculty should 
hold their office until the medical fraternity can 
supersede it with a better faculty. These col¬ 
leges should be supplied with adequate build¬ 
ings, etc., and ample funds. 

The saving and prolonging of human life will 
interest all our people and should be safe- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 53 


guarded by every power of the nation. No 
human being should be deprived of medical aid 
in time of need. Sooner or later we all have 
need—either directly or indirectly—for the 
service of a physician and if we are unable on 
account of financial ability to pay for the same, 
the nation should step in and pay for the serv¬ 
ice rendered and this without hunting up some 
doctor who is specially elected to serve such 
unfortunates. None should be denied the best 
services obtainable. Through these scientists 
the Exchequer should acquire the plants for 
the manufacture of all intoxicants and drugs, 
their importation and exportation, and they 
should have the sole right to retail the same. 
This would soon put a stop to drunkenness and 
minimize poison by drugs. Our lives are too 
dear to us to be forever jeopardized by the 
thoughtless or the charlatan, and it is as much 
the bounden duty of the nation to protect us 
from the inexperienced and quack as to pro¬ 
tect us from a foreign foe. This plan will meet 
the approbation of the miser as well as the 
spendthrift; of the conservative as well as the 
radical; of the ignorant as well as the edu¬ 
cated, because it appeals to our selfishness be 


54 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


we rich or poor, educated or ignorant. Who 
knows how soon his life may depend on the 
prompt attendance of a physician? Of that 
number who take a medical course not all of 
them would make successful practitioners, so 
by relegating them to pharmacy their education 
could be utilized in the drug stores and intoxi¬ 
cant depots to their own benefit and to society’s 
advantage and protection. If we thought it 
necessary to elaborate on this subject, the theme 
is grand enough to write volumes of entertain¬ 
ing matter, but it is firmly believed that no 
sane person will question the advisability of our 
position. 

LANGUAGE. 

Something should be done to compress the 
English language into some more compact form 
or in a few generations it will take a lifetime 
for one to become familiarized with the hun¬ 
dreds of thousands of words a lexicon would 
contain; in fact, that work is too large now. 
It does appear that a more simple language 
could be invented to take the place of ours, 
which would soon be adopted by the people 
of all civilized nations. At the present time one 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 55 


lias to be conversant with a large vocabulary 
to be able to hold any paying position of trust, 
and in many cases it is found impossible to 
find those whose education is sufficient in that 
abundance one would wish. Genius has and is 
developing new and useful improvements in all 
other branches of science that immediately be¬ 
come necessities. Why can’t it open this 
field? The Exchequer should take up this sub¬ 
ject and see what could be done. True, some 
attempts have been made to introduce a uni¬ 
versal vocabulary, but thus far it has made 
but little progress. It is exceedingly doubt¬ 
ful if any one person will be found capable of 
suggesting any system that would be adopted 
by all nations but if those who have the natural 
gift and the acquired erudition were to be se¬ 
lected by all the nations and assembled in con¬ 
vention it is highly probable that they could 
do much to advance this branch of science— 
we should make the effort. It might be urged 
that this would render our education worthless 
if we introduced any new characters to rep¬ 
resent ideas, things and sounds. No doubt 
only the school children would be required to 
master the new language in the acquiring of 


56 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


knowledge in their schools, while as their par¬ 
ents would use their national language in their 
intercourse in the family the children would not 
be called upon to memorize more than any for¬ 
eign children do who are brought up in a coun¬ 
try using a foreign tongue to that of their par¬ 
ents’ language. 

The writer is fully persuaded that if such a 
language were once introduced among civilized 
nations it would do more to elevate the masses 
to a higher plane of civilization than any one 
act that coufjl be done, as it would make it pos¬ 
sible for citizens of different nations to freely 
communicate ideas. 

CO-PARTNERSHIP AND PRIVATE COR¬ 
PORATIONS. 

The former is a contract entered into by two 
or more individuals, either by parol or in writ¬ 
ing for a general or specific purpose, and in 
law makes all the partners security for any 
loss that may be incurred on account of the 
firm to other parties; while the latter is an as¬ 
sociation created by law and defined by stat¬ 
ute and the liabilities are thereby prescribed, 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 57 


defined and limited. The latter is fast doing 
away with the former because of the limit of 
liability and its durability and convenience. In 
the former the agreement generally recites the 
duties of each partner, but in neither form of 
consolidation has there been taken into consid¬ 
eration the employes. Few of either exist 
where partners or incorporators alone do the 
business or labor of the company or associa¬ 
tion without extraneous employment; there¬ 
fore, both of these forms of combination should 
be subject to legislation and should be under 
the Exchequer for the reason that it is a non¬ 
political body and could have a continuous 
supervision over them. If the constitution 
should provide that where it takes two or more 
persons to create, produce, operate or construct 
any useful thing or commodity that after pay¬ 
ing a reasonable dividend—defined by the Ex¬ 
chequer—for the capital employed in the en¬ 
terprise and the wage scale the residue should 
be divided pro rata between all those who pro¬ 
duced the same, there need not be any fear by 
the public of any trust or combination whatso¬ 
ever, for the reason this plan would so scatter 
the surplus that it would not be felt by the 


58 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


general public. We hear much from the 
thoughtless of a surplus of labor and this is 
given by the selfish as a reason for a reduction 
in the price of labor. Yes, they say that supply 
and demand must govern labor and its wages 
the same as those of commodities. Probably, 
no more fallacious idiosyncrasy ever took pos¬ 
session of the mind than this hallucination. It 
is as foreign to the facts as it is possible for 
the mind of man to diverge and be sane. It is 
said that nothing is lost in nature, but that all 
evolves for the continuity of the solar system, 
but where in all space can be found a fit place 
for one so narrowminded ? There is not a sane 
business man on the globe we inhabit but knows 
that if each person received five dollars for 
each working day in the year, that times and 
business would be better than they ever have 
been. For a manufacturer to declare that there 
has been overproduction, is to indite his own 
sagacity and forethought. Few, indeed, of any 
commodities are produced that the public 
would not absorb if their industry and its re¬ 
wards were capable or enabled them to do so. 
If the head of any enterprise were to neglect to 
anticipate the probable demand for his prod- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 59 


net, he would be wanting in business capacity 
and sagacity to an alarming extent. Emigra¬ 
tion should increase a demand for goods equal 
to the necessities of the emigrant. Emigration, 
aside from its low intelligence, should inure to 
the prosperity of a country to the extent of the 
want for those commodities the emigrant con¬ 
sumes and cause an activity above the nor¬ 
mal to that extent, and would if the cupidity 
and selfishness of the cringing employer did not 
take advantage of the emigrant’s ignorance and 
necessities to get his services for less than they 
should be. The poor fool of an employer thus 
induces hard times as a reward for his parsi¬ 
mony. Some call such procedure business, and 
gloat over their ill-gotten gain, while in fact 
it is the cunning device of a thief to rob the 
emigrant of what rightly belongs to him and 
his family. Don’t think that we have no re¬ 
spect for those who furnish employment to 
others, for we have the most profound respect 
for those human giants but we cannot condone 
thievery from any, much less from a defense¬ 
less emigrant. It will not lessen our contempt 
for such an one by the plea that the emigrant is 
receiving a greater reward for his labor than 


60 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


he could have gotten in the land of his nativ¬ 
ity. No, he is here by our permission, under the 
protection of free men and should receive the 
hospitality of an honorable people. Yes, should 
be safeguarded and encouraged to emulate the 
best of us. 

Perhaps it would be as well to give an illus¬ 
tration of the results of declaring the market 
overstocked with labor. In a certain locality a 
few men who were the authors of their own 
fortune engaged individually in a given line 
of business and paid their employes good wages 
and all went well, they made money and their 
employes were happy, but the news went 
abroad and soon there were more men than 
those parties could employ. About this time 
there came on the arena a shrewd, miserly man 
who quietly mastered the ways of those humane 
employers, and as he possessed capital and had 
unlimited credit he set up in the business and 
as he found it easy to employ all the help he 
wanted, he set in at a lower scale of wages than 
those others had been paying and soon those 
parties of the first part found out that this in¬ 
terloper was displacing their commodities by 
those of his own to their customers. Now, the 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 61 


question which confronted them was what to 
do—to continue as before would insure bank¬ 
ruptcy, so they had to reduce their scale of 
wages, which, of course, soured the minds of 
their employes and a strike ensued. Who was 
responsible for the strike? The principle in¬ 
volved in the foregoing is not new. It is em¬ 
ployed in many avocations and is and has been 
always resorted to for selfish motives only. 
Would it not be better to make a unit for labor 
or employment of a rigid character by a con¬ 
stitutional amendment so we would know that 
it could not be tampered with, than to go on in 
this haphazard way of doing business for that 
unit, and the other guarantee of an interest in 
the profits would insure the employes immu¬ 
nity from selfish employers and the employer 
tranquillity. This would do more to keep busi¬ 
ness in a normal condition than any one thing 
we can think of. As the years roll round the 
consolidation of business enterprises continue 
to increase more and more, men seek employ¬ 
ment in preference to starting some new enter¬ 
prise until it appears as though the self-reliance 
that once obtained to a marked degree in this 
country is fast dying out. Mark the anomaly, 


62 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


those same persons who seek employment so 
assiduously, want to dictate to the employer 
just how his business shall be conducted. The 
contractor cannot make a specific contract as 
to time or amount, because of the uncertainty 
as to the price of labor or commodities before 
the contract can be completed, while he who 
is to foot the bills must be a millionaire to 
venture into the construction. This is chaos— 
imbecile chaos at that! Look at it from any 
point of view and the whole transaction is a 
game of chance from the garbage haulers to the 
builders of sky-scrapers. Yes, it permeates our 
whole complex economic system and what is 
the worst feature of the gloomy picture is that 
it will never be any better until we get rid of 
our complex system of state legislation. But 
says one, the unit idea will not do because no 
two persons will produce the same amount of 
results in a given time. 

We must go deeper into this matter to con¬ 
vince those honest skeptics. Society is cre¬ 
ated to protect each member thereof, and in 
a free country, each is a component part of 
the whole. Now, that society acts on each in¬ 
dividual as of equal import in its construction 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 63 


and thereby forms a unit—the individual—• 
which said unit is society’s life and, therefore, 
society has the inherent right to protect each 
unit in its contact with other units. Society 
in its intercourse with other societies will 
of course be subject to the survival of the fit¬ 
test, but the same law will not apply to society 
in its individual capacity because the unit— 
man—represents the very life of society, and 
that society which treats, protects and defends 
each of its units impartially will survive that 
society that neglects them or any part of them. 
The individual may or may not be a giant in 
frame or intellect, or he may or may not be a 
dwarf in frame or only accountable in intel¬ 
lect, and yet either of them is a unit to be pro¬ 
tected by society—the state. When we think 
of the advancements genius has elevated the 
human race to, and view the possibilities to 
which they are ever unfolding to our gaze, we 
wonder why man must work from ‘ ‘ early dawn 
to dewy eve” to sustain life—true, not all have 
to struggle so, but far too many do. If a unity 
of action is once established it will be found 
that man need not labor more than what is 
good for his bodily health to enjoy more hap- 


64 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


piness than has ever been enjoyed—except to 
the favored few on this terrestrial globe. The 
germ of progress that is ever unfolding new 
and useful things for man’s use or amusement 
comes from genius, and although they receive 
less consideration than any other class from 
the general public, they keep right on in their 
good work. Should we not devise means where¬ 
by they should be insured a reward that could 
not be filched from them? 

All private corporations should receive their 
charter from the Exchequer, which body should 
issue their stock at par value—no watered 
stock should be permitted under any circum¬ 
stance. Intrinsic value should be held by the 
company for every share of stock issued. The 
employes should elect a portion of the director¬ 
ate of all associations and they should be em¬ 
ployes of the company. This would infuse into 
the minds of all those who labored for or held 
stock a mutual interest in the economic man¬ 
agement of the association. In some associa¬ 
tions there should be a per cent annually 
marked off on account of deterioration of the 
plant, and charged to expense account. The 
idea is to give back to the stockholder his orig- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 65 


inal capital when the association is dissolved, 
unimpaired after first paying an annual reason¬ 
able dividend. Under such safeguards idiots 
only would inaugurate a strike. Capital would 
be secure and would be a servant of great good 
for the prosperity of the nation. Capital is 
created by law to subserve the wants of society 
and not to enslave the members thereof. 

TRUSTS. 

The formation of trusts, in some form, comes 
to us from mediaeval times, and while a his¬ 
tory of them might be entertaining, we need 
not go into their origin. Suffice it to say, that 
they, when properly conducted, are susceptible 
of being a means of great benefit to man. When 
they are formed and conducted legitimately 
they can become an economic help of vast good 
to all parties in interest and the public in gen¬ 
eral. To do so, however, they should be under 
the supervision of the Exchequer from whence 
their powers should be derived. Let the reader 
consider that if trusts had not been found to 
subserve the interests of society they would long 
since have dropped out of use. It is the dema- 


06 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


gogue who decries trusts because some have 
been conducted dishonestly, and in some cases 
been used as engines of oppression. We can 
retain trusts and combinations and get all the 
good possible out of them by simply guarding 
their operations by a constitutional provision 
that will compel an honest administration of 
the fiduciary. Many different lines of business 
scattered over our vast domain could combine 
into a trust that could handle their products 
and deliver them to the consumer or local ven¬ 
dor and thereby save to the consumer a consid¬ 
erable amount in the cost of the articles if it 
was fairly and economically conducted. Unnec¬ 
essary expense in getting articles of consump¬ 
tion to the consumer is waste of the most flag¬ 
rant character. When one person can fairly 
represent the interest of several parties it is silly 
to employ more persons. The time and expense 
of all traveling representatives must be paid by 
the consumer, and if by forming a trust the 
producers can create and deliver to the con¬ 
sumer a given commodity for less money then 
it is his duty to do so, by trust if necessary. 
The consumer could thereby be able to consume 
more products and, therefore, be more service- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 67 


able to the producing class. If the editorial 
writers would discuss w r ays and means whereby 
trusts could not be conducted on dishonest 
methods, they would increase their circulation 
and receive more encomiums from a think¬ 
ing public. Perhaps when the owners of 
the press find that the people at large have 
taken this and other economic subjects up with 
a determination to better our condition in a 
peaceable way they may be induced to let their 
editorial writers handle the subjects in scien¬ 
tific and logical form. Perhaps the editorial 
writers of this country are as brainy a set of 
writers as any to be found in the world, and 
if they are, let them handle the subject in all 
its bearings; it will not take long for them to 
evolve a solution of the question at issue to 
the credit of the nation and the happiness and 
satisfaction of the people. To say that this 
brainy class has not given these subjects serious 
thought and at times elucidation, would be 
wrong for ever and anon they sound the timbrel 
of warning, but the controllers of their policies 
have held so tight a rein on their writings that 
nothing tangible has been produced. It is to be 
hoped the owners of the press will soon see the 


68 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


error of their conservatism and let a more rad¬ 
ical voice belch forth from the cannons of the 
press. The letters of approbation they would 
soon receive from the thoughtful commending 
their patriotic course, would soon convince them 
that they had struck the sympathetic and patri¬ 
otic breasts of the nation. What nobler work 
can be performed than the uplifting of one’s 
country? What grander embellishment could 
the pages of the press display than that of a 
patriotic rivalry in striving to outstrip each 
other for the amelioration of the condition of 
the whole people of North America? None. 
Trusts are like all other combinations, creatures 
of law and hence subject to legislation as of 
right. They should be defined and limited by 
the Exchequer and held to a strict account by 
the same to the end that they subserve the 
interest of producer and consumer alike. While 
the Constitution should declare eight hours the 
limit—except in cases of emergency—for a 
day’s work in each twenty-four-hour-day of 
brawn or brain, the Exchequer should have the 
right to diminish said time for the purpose of 
giving an increased number of persons employ- 



THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 69 


ment, if such an exigency should arise without 
decreasing the daily pay, however. 

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT. 

The internal improvement of the whole nation 
should be initiated and carried on under the 
Exchequer. This should extend to a supervi¬ 
sion of municipal improvements as well as na¬ 
tional. The scandal that is being brought to 
light every once and a while where municipal 
officers have wasted or filched the public funds 
under the guise of public improvements, should 
be checked by a drastic hand—none more com¬ 
petent to do so than the Exchequer. The coun¬ 
try should be provided with good public high¬ 
ways, as fast as it is practical to make them, 
and they should be continuous and national in 
their character. Time might come when the na¬ 
tion found it necessary to use these roads as 
military conveniences, so the sooner they are 
put into good condition the better. Farmers 
are as much entitled to good roads as towns 
and cities to paved streets. So far as may be 
practicable, the criminal class should be com¬ 
pelled to perform the work of road-making. It 


70 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


might prove interesting to make comparison 
between localities where good roads exist and 
those of indifferent or no improvements, but 
we will forego the pleasure of picturing the dis¬ 
parity that exists by only affirming that where 
they exist the farmers are generally two weeks 
in advance of those who have no improvement 
or those of poor quality, which, in short sea¬ 
sons, is of vast importance to them. 

Waterways have cost the nation vast sums 
of money, and if they had been under the con¬ 
trol of a body like the one proposed to create— 
Exchequer—the people would have realized 
much greater results for the expenditures. 
A ship canal should connect the great lakes 
with the Mississippi River as precautionary 
measures in time of war and for commercial 
purposes in time of peace. Something should 
be done toward forming great basins to catch 
and retain the waters along our great rivers 
in flood time so they can be controlled and util¬ 
ized to make them less destructive in time of 
floods and more serviceable in time of drouth. 
In certain localities these catch basins could 
be connected with irrigated lands to aid hus¬ 
bandry. Many contributary rivers could be 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 71 


cheaply held in check by a succession of dams. 
Irrigated lands are the surest producers and 
if the waters were controlled by the nation they 
could be operated at a minimum cost to the 
consumer. The nation will, no doubt, soon have 
commenced to cut a canal through the isthmus 
to connect the waters for commercial purposes 
—of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This 
should be under the domain of the Exchequer. 
We have delayed this matter entirely too long. 
The causes of the procrastination do not sound 
to our credit nor redound to our statesmanship. 
This waiting as we have to unite those oceans 
is too much like those farmers who hitch up 
their team and then find they are minus a plow; 
then they hie themselves to the nearest agricul¬ 
tural dealer to buy one although they had had 
many opportunities to buy before. Now we 
have great need for a canal, so we, like those 
farmers who act when dire necessity makes it 
imperative, we will doubtless act with great 
energy, and, no doubt, self-laudations. Bosh! 
If the great captains of industry did not dis¬ 
play more energy than our politicians have in 
thus minimizing the facilities of interchange of 
commodities we would soon be a nation of 


72 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


Koreans—perhaps our imperfect and complex 
system is the greatest cause of our unprepared¬ 
ness. Be it what it may, we should hasten to 
correct the evil. If we are to dominate the 
western continent for the good of the people 
thereof, it is high time we discarded many of 
our fossil ideas and procrastinations. Our po¬ 
sition in the family of nations is not impreg¬ 
nable, hut can easily be made nearly so by us¬ 
ing the possibilities that are now presented to 
us. Some great minds fear the yellow race 
in futuro. Now would be a good time to con¬ 
sider the “yellow peril” as it is termed. Eu¬ 
rope is isolated by land distance from any peril 
but when those sleepy Orientals awake to civ¬ 
ilization as Europe has and their ships plow 
the deep, they may energize their multitudes 
and become a power of vast resources. Now, 
while we would not object to their increased 
commerce, we could not permit them to use 
the isthmus canal in time of war for fighting 
engines. The canal should be used for com¬ 
merce only, but in time of war should be closed 
to all belligerents—except ourselves. Those 
Europeans who want the canal to be as free as 
the open sea should consider this point well 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 73 


before striving to remove all restrictions to its 
free use for all classes of vessels. We are the 
intermediate between these two opposite races 
of men—the Oriental and the Occidental—and 
while we as a nation stand in this relation, we 
should encourage diplomacy rather than in¬ 
crease facilities for belligerency on the part of 
either party. No, we will not consent to an 
“open door” to warring nations. They must 
look to the natural routes for combatting pur¬ 
poses. With the Oriental we will strive to live 
in peace and sweet concord, while with the 
Occidental we will be one of them striving to 
uplift all mankind. By giving the canal in 
charge of the Exchequer we remove it from the 
turmoil of internal passion or political dema¬ 
gogy to a venerable and patriotic body. 

The Post Office business should be given over 
to the Exchequer so it would not be a bone 
of periodical contention as to who should be 
nominated and confirmed as Postmaster. This 
branch of the public service could be put upon 
a business basis. We grant that a great deal 
has been done in the last few years by civil 
service, but this has not entirely divorced the 
business from the domain of politics as it should 


74 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


be. There are too many sinecures for favored 
political friends. It is well enough to have 
political parties, but when the election is over 
those who are elected should consider the wants 
of the whole people and that of the service, and 
not the pecuniary wants of their individual 
friends. It is poor business to have politics 
in it. In a majority of the Post Offices it would 
be practical to have them and the repositories 
combined for economical purposes. This would 
make the service more democratic than it is 
now because the depositors would elect the re¬ 
sponsible head and should be surety to the 
nation for the acts of the incumbent and the 
employes. No community could then truth¬ 
fully say that they were not getting all the 
rights they were entitled to. This would be 
fair, honest, and just to all parties in interest. 
It is one of the cardinal principles of a free 
people that those who pay the expenses of an 
officer should dictate who that officer should 
be, so long as said officer is competent and 
willing to fill the position, instead of having 
an officer thrust upon them by outside author¬ 
ity. This plan will no doubt appeal to our 
Southern communities as a just suggestion and 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 75 


one by which they can be relieved of great 
anxiety as to who will be their Postmaster 
every four years or so. Again, business knows 
no section when in active operation for it is, 
when systematically conducted, under inflexi¬ 
ble rules, the same in one portion of the coun¬ 
try as it is in another; therefore, it would grad¬ 
ually make us more homogeneous and compan¬ 
ionable, being a desideratum not to be over¬ 
looked by a people wishing to harmonize all 
the elements that are found in our large do¬ 
main. There is nothing in this radical change 
from our present manner of conducting the 
Post Office business that should detract from 
our present efficient mode of conducting the 
business, but rather create a desire to better 
the service. 

PUBLIC LANDS. 

All state, county, and municipal lands should 
of right be vested in the nation without formal¬ 
ity of law other than a constitutional section 
being framed and adopted therefor. All the pub¬ 
lic lands now held by the nation should forever 
remain the property of the nation and the con¬ 
stitution should direct that the nation should 


76 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


not alienate any land owned by the nation or 
that hereafter might be acquired by it. The 
time will come when the nation will own all 
the lands oyer which its supervision extends; 
therefore we might as well commence with what 
land we have left. The Exchequer should have 
sole control over government lands and prop¬ 
erty for the use of the nation. It will not be 
many decades until the people will demand a 
time limit for private or corporate ownership 
of lands so we might just as well commence sys¬ 
tematizing the management of what the nation 
has left as to condemn it to get it back. 

Those single tax advocates could exert their 
ingenuity in devising practical ways to make 
their assertion good—that taxes should come 
from the land only, or forever give up their 
panacea for all our troubles. Perhaps if the 
nation owned all the land and charged only a 
nominal sum for its use, a great impetus would 
be imparted to husbandry and a healthier moral 
atmosphere given to many localities which are 
now sadly in need of it. 

PENSIONS. 

That the nation should pension the aged, in- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 77 


digent and maimed so they might not be a bur- 
den to their relatives, nor be dependent upon 
the cold hand of charity, is too self-evident to 
require argument to sustain the assertion. It 
is only the selfish, heartless few who will decry 
against so beneficent and humane an obliga¬ 
tion. Who has not seen the helpless aged neg¬ 
lected and often despised and treated cruelly 
when, if they had been monthly receiving a lib¬ 
eral pension from the government, would have 
been able to command the necessities and com¬ 
forts their aged condition required ? They 
have fought the battles of life and done their 
share toward advancing civilization for the 
young and strong to enjoy, and to deny them 
a pension of right would do more to prove us 
ungrateful than any act of omission we can 
think of. Who does not enjoy seeing the aged 
surrounded with the comforts of life, and 
cheered by loving friends, passing with sweet 
cadence to sleep in mother earth? Oh, tell us 
not of the millions in dollars it would cost 
when billions upon billions of happiness would 
be the reward! All do not age at the same 
time—with one it may be at forty, while an¬ 
other may go to sixty or even seventy, but 


78 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


senility or death will sooner or later put in its 
appearance and we should have some refuge— 
the nation. 

The medical fraternity should pass upon this 
age matter and the Exchequer should furnish 
the pension funds. It is presumed that few, 
indeed, will be found who will not have heart 
enough to second this suggestion. The rules, 
regulations and edicts of the Exchequer should 
have the same interpretation and force before 
the Judiciary as the acts of the Congress, and 
the courts should carry into effect their acts— 
when found constitutional—in the same way 
it now does the acts of the Congress. 

SETTLEMENT OF ESTATES. 

The Exchequer should settle all estates. No 
will should ever be considered in the settlement 
of estates, for the reason that no decedent can 
possibly know what the future may be or what 
changes even he might make if alive at the 
time of its settlement. Property, wealth, and 
land are for the living and not for the dead. 
While we live the state protects our person 
and property and allows us to use the property 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 79 
* 

for any lawful purpose that we may desire, 
but after we are dead the state should not be 
asked to allow the dead to dictate as to what 
use or uses property is to be put. This should 
be enough to ask the state to do. If this idea 
was carried a little further and decreed that 
where a party dies having no issue—heir—and 
left a widow or widower, as the case may be, 
that the surviving widow or widower should re¬ 
tain a life interest in the estate, and after the 
death of the survivor that the estate be divided 
between the heirs at law of the party from 
whom the estate originated. This would at 
once do away with commercial marriages. The 
craze of too many persons to marry for wealth 
is scandalous and should be discouraged by all 
lawful and social means rather than encourag¬ 
ing such matches as the law and society now 
do. Affinity and fitness are thrown to the 
wind in the mad rush for wealth. It is time to 
put away the old adage that comes down to 
us from the time when men captured their 
wives by the sword that “all is fair in love 
and war.” The latter in civilized nations has 
been defined by international law, while the 
former has been left to prey upon the suscepti- 


80 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


bilities of the well-to-do. Would it not be 
well to legally discourage this practice for the 
common good of society? Millions of the 
wealth produced in our land have been diverted 
from its natural and legitimate channel and 
been carried to Europe for a name. Much of 
this would return to its original source if our 
laws were changed in this respect as suggested. 
Sordid and mercenary motives should be dis¬ 
couraged by every legitimate means to the end 
that life and happiness would not be prosti¬ 
tuted to greed and wealth. When the women 
have an equal voice in the nation as men have, 
we think they will find a way to make wedded 
life more congenial and thereby improve the 
race, as has been practically demonstrated in 
the Floral, Vegetable and Animal kingdoms. 

Many pages could be written on this branch 
of our subject, but we think it is just as well 
to leave it for future consideration. Then, you 
know, it is not politic to encroach upon a sub¬ 
ject that might interfere with the emoluments 
of so extended a class, as a scientific mode of 
continuing the race might require, while that 
class might be induced to aid other reforms 
that are equally as important. 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 81 


FOOD ADULTERATION. 

Adulterations of food and clothing should be 
under the Exchequer or rather, they should ex¬ 
ercise a supervision in such matters so the pub¬ 
lic could not be deceived by fraudulent adver¬ 
tisements and representations into buying un¬ 
wholesome food or worthless clothing, etc., etc. 
The shameful manner in which the susceptible 
public is being deceived by unprincipled com¬ 
pounders of foods and beverages should be 
stopped by the strong hand of the nation be¬ 
fore they for selfish gain poison our whole peo¬ 
ple. They have poisoned our morals to a great 
extent already. Advertisers should be held to 
a strict account for what they say in their ad¬ 
vertisements. No doubt some writers will find 
their employment gone and themselves looking 
for more commendable work than humbugging 
the public as they have been doing, but we 
can stand that and live. 

TREATIES. 

Trading among nations tends to civilize the 
people of all nations that enter into such barter 


82 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


and as they become more cosmopolitan and 
friendly, they are more apt to adjust their dif¬ 
ferences without going to war, for the business 
element exerts a great influence upon the polit¬ 
ical to the end that more and more nations are 
settling their differences by diplomacy, which 
is to the credit of those in dispute. We already 
have treaties with nearly all nations, but they 
will be found inconsistent as they now exist, 
if our nation carries out the suggestions we 
advance, and, therefore, we would want to 
change them so as to be consistent with the 
new order of things. For this and other rea¬ 
sons we should change the confirmation of all 
treaties to that of the Exchequer from that of 
the Senate, for instance the Exchequer should 
have charge of emigration, and they would no 
doubt require a moral and educational fitness 
on the part of adults as a prerequisite to make 
emigration possible. The Exchequer should 
have to some extent the right to say in what 
part of the republic the emigrant should lo¬ 
cate so as to make it possible to in time Amer¬ 
icanize him. If emigrants were more equally 
distributed throughout the nation it would be 
far better for them and their children and us 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 83 


too, than the way they do now in flocking in 
large communities to some given centre. By 
their unrestrained action and location they 
transplant little communities among us that 
correspond to their nativity and there continue 
their old mode of life. At the present time one 
need not journey to Europe to see the ways of 
its people for in any large city in America can 
be found communities that are fair samples of 
those countries. If emigrants would scatter 
out among our people more they would sooner 
catch the spirit of our people in their phe¬ 
nomenal development. It is true that our so¬ 
cial ways are strange to them, but they should 
be willing to put up with the innovation for 
the better advantages their children would 
have in becoming assimilated in the ways of 
Americanism. No doubt the aged and infirm 
of their number would turn longing eyes in 
their reflective moments toward the land of 
their nativity and, for a moment, sigh because 
they cannot see the old home where they were 
born or meet in social union those playmates 
they once held so dear. Yes, they are human 
and cannot help thinking of the old homestead; 
the verdant field; the swelling hills; the lofty 


84 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


mountains, or rippling brook where they were 
wont to chase the air bubbles, or perhaps fish 
in the broad river or watch the incoming tide 
with its rolling billows on old ocean’s shore. 
Such thoughts are natural to the human mind 
and we should not chide them for those 
thoughts or for a wish to again look upon 
the scene of their childhood. When they are 
in this mood we should do all we could to 
make them feel that they, though far from 
home, are among friends who sympathize with 
them. Make them feel that they have made no 
mistake in coming among us to find friends in 
all their trials and tribulations, for it will do 
more to elevate them and us than anything we 
can do. Theoretically man should be free to 
roam at will the world over and perhaps the 
day may come when he can, but for the pres¬ 
ent and while such dissimilar governments rule 
over us to advance any principle to a higher 
plane than another, it is necessary to use cau¬ 
tion in admitting the people of other climes to 
citizenship in that government which has taken 
such a forward move. The vicious of all king¬ 
doms, empires and republics increase in propor¬ 
tion as the class from whence they come are 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 85 


neglected by the governing power in which 
they are domiciled. They are the excrescences 
of all nations and the immediate and pestering 
element which must be eliminated by scientific 
propagation before the millennium can be ex¬ 
pected to enter into the world’s civilization— 
we cannot be too guarded in keeping this class 
of emigration out. 

CITIZENSHIP. 

All aliens should reside in this country 
twenty-one years before they could be 'enfran¬ 
chised. Our minors have to do so, why not 
aliens? Perhaps then their votes would be 
considered of more value to them, and the na¬ 
tion could feel a greater security in their using 
the same with prudence. We are writing on 
the principle of the majority of those aliens 
who come to our shores freely granting that 
some come so fully informed of our status as 
to be, in some cases, better able to use the bal¬ 
lot with intelligence than many of our native 
born citizens, but they are so few that the 
harm that would come from shortening the 
time of probation should not be considered, no 


86 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


matter how much we may deplore the necessity 
of keeping those in the embryo state so long. 
If we could be assured that all our future emi¬ 
grant element would be of the latter class, then 
the precaution suggested would not be neces¬ 
sary, but as we cannot have that assurance we 
should have a constitutional amendment to 
meet the case, so that political influences could 
not negate the will of the people. 

SALARIES. 

That designing parties might not be able to 
render the mandates of the Exchequer nuga¬ 
tory, they should have the sole power to de¬ 
clare how many salaried officers a municipality 
could have or a private corporation could em¬ 
ploy and the amount of each officer’s monthly 
pay. When we take into consideration the 
great number of persons who are equally capa¬ 
ble of filling a given official capacity it looks 
like extravagance to give any one such an enor¬ 
mous amount that to make the enterprise pay 
the rank and file must be engaged at a pittance 
and their families made miserable in conse¬ 
quence of the high salaries given to the few. 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 87 


This is perpetuating the baronical idea of the 
feudal ages which we are striving to get away 
from. A nation that will protect, defend and 
encourage one to live in affluence because per¬ 
chance that one has been the initiatory of the 
enterprise and controls its pulsations, and ig¬ 
nore the rights of those persons who make the 
enterprise possible, is derelict in its duty, to 
call it by no harsher name. “Man’s inhuman¬ 
ity to man causes countless millions to 
mourn.” Then, again, when we consider the 
fact that of those who are classed among the 
mediocre of our population in intelligence, it 
is but little more knowledge the best of us 
ever gains, it looks like extravagance to pay 
the responsible head an excessive salary for 
the same reason—such action is wilful waste 
which causes woeful want. A nation should 
make such inequality impossible as to the re¬ 
sults of human effort in the useful arts and 
sciences. No salary should be greater than 
three hundred dollars per month, and those in 
rare cases, and no salary should be less than 
sixty dollars per month for any kind of brain 
or manual labor, and our tariffs should be so 
amended that such salaries could be given with- 


88 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


out importation’s interference with the com¬ 
modities we produce. 

Here the croaker will belch forth with all 
his wrath and declare that we are curtailing 
the rights the individual has ever enjoyed to 
forge ahead as far as he could without let or 
hindrance. That we are holding the mighty 
and forceful so he cannot plunge ahead with 
all his energy to a goal far beyond his needs. 
That it is against the policy of this govern¬ 
ment to hamper any man’s ambition. Cool thy 
wrath! We have not, nor do we wish to cur¬ 
tail, hold, or hamper any individual, but give 
him or her free rein to accomplish any and all 
legal results they may be able to accomplish 
as individuals. All we ask is that when they 
have to call to their aid others that we would 
interfere to protect those aids.' 

Too many of us will agree with this view 
theoretically, but when it curtails our own in¬ 
come, we halt and cannot be induced to put 
the theory into practice, and then, again, oth¬ 
ers of us who are receiving a greater income 
fall back and declare that we are trustees ap¬ 
pointed by Providence to be our brother’s 
keeper and therefore have need for greater 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 89 


wealth to the better discharge of the trust God 
has given us. This last idea is predicated upon 
“the divine right of kings” to rule over men. 
It is a kind of self laudation and self sufficiency 
that finds no warrant in the Declaration of In¬ 
dependence to sustain that selfish deification of 
ourselves and our supposed necessary wants. 
For thousands of years religion in some form 
or another has been trying to get man to be 
less selfish and more humane towards his kind, 
but it has never succeeded to that extent we 
could wish. It appears that all religions incul¬ 
cate good morals and teach that the way to hap¬ 
piness is to make others happy. Now, we see 
that it is not want of effort upon the subject 
matter that the desideratum has not come to 
be an accomplished fact, but rather that the 
proper means has never been employed to ac¬ 
complish the much desired and praiseworthy 
effect. Is it asking too much to try some other 
mode of action? If we are sane, then we must 
admit that religion has been found wanting, 
for justice has never been obtained for all men 
through the teachings of religion. Again, we 
say that as a nation we are honest—that we, as 
such, treat all nations and individuals fairly— 


90 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


that we think more of our national honor than 
we do of our lives and that this “think” ap¬ 
plies to all our people. It is the one fundamen¬ 
tal or democratic idea that radiates from every 
subject of the nation. Then why not take that 
fundamental or democratic idea and clothe it 
with active power to the end that we accom¬ 
plish more for man’s elevation in a generation 
than all the religions of earth combined have 
done so far? We should be wise and not at¬ 
tempt to go too far in this radical move at a 
single stroke. We think we have indicated a 
conservative course and would most strenu¬ 
ously urge our people not to attempt to go far¬ 
ther in the initiatory, for too often praise¬ 
worthy attempts have proven failures because 
the promoters did not start with the bud and 
gradually grow up to the ripe cherry. We 
have suggested that each decade be ushered in 
with a constitutional convention for the pur¬ 
pose of amending the constitution if it is found 
to the interest of our people. This, too, ought 
to satisfy the radicals and should not scare 
the conservatives out of their wits. A moral 
coward is the nearest nothing that nature has 
ever produced—perhaps he has only been ere- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 91 


ated to show the possibilities of nature—a sort 
of monstrosity. On a salary of sixty dollars a 
month none need go hungry—as some do now 
—especially as there is likely to be a dividend 
coming in the wind up, nor would three hun¬ 
dred dollars a month be apt to make million¬ 
aires in superabundance. We think it will be 
harder to induce those who would naturally be 
found in the sixty-dollar class to take an active 
interest in bringing these suggestions into prac¬ 
tice than those of the three hundred-dollar 
class, for the reason that among the former 
there are so many who are so indolent that 
they will not exert their dormant energies for 
fear they might be recognized as useful mem¬ 
bers of society—dire necessity is the only in¬ 
centive that will spur them to action, and when 
it does they will be so lethargic in its per¬ 
formance that small results are hard to get out 
of them, while those of the latter class appear 
to be burning with active, vital energy. Those 
who will not make an effort to better their con¬ 
dition should not find fault with those who do, 
but it is from that ignorant class we must look 
to find the grumblers. We, the people, are to 
blame for a few controlling a majority of the 


92 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


wealth of the nation. We are to blame! But 
that is no reason we should continue to make 
millionaires. We have the inherent right to 
stop making them. Will we do it? That is 
the question that if answered in the affirmative 
will do more to advance the happiness of our 
race than any other thing that could be done. 

All this talk about never putting sacrilegious 
hands on the Federal Constitution is rot—yes, 
the basest kind of rot. It was drawn for a 
purpose and to meet an exigency that existed 
when we were less numerous as a people than 
some cities are to-day, and not for a steam and 
electric age wherein so many millions of peo¬ 
ple live, move, and have their being. We are 
not a superstitious race of men that can be 
lured to destruction by the possessors of the 
utilities and necessaries of life because, for¬ 
sooth, the Constitution was framed by men 
for whom we all have a profound reverence, as 
we have for all men of all climes who do the 
best they can under the times and circum¬ 
stances under which they are placed. We pro¬ 
pose to do &s they did with the articles of con¬ 
federation when they found them no longer 
suited to the exigencies they found the country 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 93 


placed in. The articles of confederation served 
as a stepping stone to the constitution and the 
formation of states out of the heterogeneous 
colonies. Now we propose to form a nation 
out of these homogeneous states because we 
have found that it is to our interest to do so, 
the same as it was to the interest of the poli¬ 
ticians to supersede the articles of confedera¬ 
tion with the constitution—thus you see we 
have precedence for our action. 

So long as the politicians continue to ex¬ 
tract the greater ratio of the revenue from the 
poor and middle class, the wealthy class will 
tolerate their stewardship and no longer. If 
the latter class realized the volcanic conditions 
of our body politic that now really exist they 
would act before the eruption makes action al¬ 
most impossible. We are not alarmists, for 
existing facts within our knowledge are too 
strenuous to ignore. The conditions now exist 
and the eruption is liable to belch forth lava 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific without a mo¬ 
ment’s warning. What a sight! All our util¬ 
ities wrecked and possibilities destroyed— 
wrecked by selfishness. Act before it is too 
late. 


94 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


PATENTS AND COPYRIGHTS. 

The commissioners of patents and the copy¬ 
right system should be under the management 
of the Exchequer, and those commissioners 
should place a value on all claims that are al¬ 
lowed, and the Exchequer should issue fraction¬ 
al stamps to those who wish to manufacture or 
use the device or improvement on receipt of 
the cash, and this should take the place of the 
time limit of the life of the patent. This would 
insure the patentee sooner or later a reward for 
his effort and would insure the public against 
a monopoly. Patentees always put too high a 
valuation on their production, and the capital¬ 
ist too low an estimate, but the capitalist never 
forgets to charge all the market will bear for 
the finished article. The government uses 
stamps for several kinds of productions and 
finds it works well, why not for the creations 
of patentees as they eke out the most precari¬ 
ous living of any useful element we have 
among us ? The public seldom gets the benefit 
if the patentee parts with his rights for a pit¬ 
tance. This is not right. Genius is born, and 
few of them are good financiers and no matter 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 95 


how useful their conception or how much it 
may do to elevate our possibilities or minimize 
our labor, they are seldom the beneficiaries. 
Their ideas will not let them rest day or night 
until they have given them form—no eight 
hours a day for them. They must work out 
their ideas to gain rest. Then, seeing they are 
the first to advance every step in progress, why 
should not the government secure them in a 
reasonable reward? It would do away with 
monopoly, for anyone could use the invention 
by stamping the same, and no one would ever 
be liable for using the article so stamped. 
When the amount has been received by the Ex¬ 
chequer that the commissioners valued the de¬ 
vice or improvement they could declare by 
proclamation the same free for the public to 
use, and would know that the inventor had 
been paid for his time and labor. This would 
be just to all parties and would encourage in¬ 
vention wonderfully. 

It is a notorious fact that while the inventor 
will contend that his creation is perfect and 
practical, that in a large majority of cases it 
is only in its formative stage and that vast 
sums of money and labor have to be expended 


96 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


upon it before it comes to that degree of per¬ 
fection that should have been obtained before 
it was offered to the public. Millions upon mil¬ 
lions have been wasted in this way and unless 
a better protective system is devised, the waste 
of money and time will continue. If the Ex¬ 
chequer would establish experimental stations 
at convenient centers and place them in the 
management of scientific and practical instruc¬ 
tors where inventors could go to have their 
devices perfected free to them—inventors are 
an impecunious class—the public would soon 
find it one of the best paying investments they 
had ever undertaken. This is upon the princi¬ 
ple that it is the duty of the nation to protect 
its citizens in every way possible. That is what 
a nation is created for. Chemistry should have 
a department in those experimental stations. 

Copyrights should also be under the super¬ 
vision of the Exchequer, so that justice would 
be meted out to the author and the public 
alike. It is the croaker and fossil; the pessi¬ 
mist and the grumbler; the shark and the 
quack only who will call this paternalism. A 
nation has a right, and it is its duty to protect 
its citizens in every way possible. These estab- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 97 


lishments would do much to encourage genius 
in all useful departments in developing our re¬ 
sources. Few born with genius have the finan¬ 
cial wealth to enable them to create new and 
useful things as they should be, but if they 
were backed bj^ the government and its trained 
scientists, many wonderful inventions would 
soon become of common* use that are now lying 
dormant in the brain of genius. There ought 
to be an elastic clause in the constitution giving 
the Exchequer the right to control, or rather 
to make rules to govern our material inter¬ 
course among ourselves. They should be con¬ 
densed, yet specifically clear and concrete so 
they could be taught in our schools. The idea 
of educating children until majority and then 
turning them loose to make a living under 
rules they know nothing about is inconsistent 
with good judgment, and should not be thought 
of for a moment. Therefore, from the kinder¬ 
garten to the highest university class, the law 
of the land should be taught to both sexes, so 
it would become as familiar to them as addi¬ 
tion or subtraction. True, this would do away 
with the necessity for so many lawyers and 
courts, but seeing they are not producers, the 


98 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


economy of the nation would not suffer on ac¬ 
count of their depreciation in numbers. One 
of the hardest undertakings man has before 
him in all civilized countries is to move the 
lawyer or judge to swerve from precedence of 
bygone days to meet the requirements and 
wants of the present time. Of course, where 
precedence is founded upon eternal truth and 
justice, then they are justified in so doing, but 
where the evolution of time has changed the 
conditions of men so that they are dissimilar 
from those at which the precedence was pro¬ 
mulgated, then they should move forward 
and harmonize their practice and decisions so 
they will look more rational and consistent to 
a practical people’s understanding. 

The foregoing subject can never be handled 
by the Congress with that degree of perfection 
that it could by another co-ordinate branch of 
the public service, for the reason that we as a 
free and independent people will never give 
to the Congress long terms that would enable 
the members to become proficient in the multi¬ 
tudinous subjects which would come before 
them for solution. We have produced but few 
great statesmen, and of those we have produced 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 99 


we have weighted them down with mouthing 
incompetents, so we could not receive the best 
results those statesmen would have given us 
if they had not been thus hampered. Don’t 
you think it is time to introduce a radical 
change so that we would be more liable to get 
a higher order of intellect to formulate laws 
for our government? Reader, it is as much 
your duty as anyone else’s and it is as much 
your business to strive to bring up the science 
of law to the plane of other achievements as 
that of anyone else. Are you willing to make 
the effort? Will you indorse the idea of form¬ 
ing a new co-ordinate branch of the govern¬ 
ment by amending the Federal Constitution? 
You may not agree with all the suggestions 
that have been advanced or you may be -able 
to advance others of more practical utility. If 
you think the move will have your co-opera¬ 
tion, then don’t throw cold water on the effort 
by saying that it can never come to pass even 
if you support it. Remember this, that free 
civilized beings are so near alike that what will 
interest one is apt to interest two, then four 
and then eight and so on in the ratio of pro¬ 
gression until the whole nation is seriously 


L. OFC, 


100 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 

considering the subject. We have other sub¬ 
jects to advance and other suggestions to offer 
when we will again return to a personal ap¬ 
peal to you and your enlightened sympathy. 

TESTIMONY. 

It appears that the criminal must have a 
confidante to whom he or she can disclose the 
fact. It seems to be a fact that somehow the 
crime will sooner or later find its way to some 
person other than those who committed the 
act, and this is not confined to any class of 
crimes. It may be to a confessor or an attor¬ 
ney, and as they are by law exempt from testi¬ 
fying, the state is at a disadvantage in locating 
or fastening the crime upon the proper person. 
This is not right for be he or she confessor or 
attorney, the state is bound to protect them 
as well as others; hence, all persons should be 
compelled to testify in open court—the priest, 
the attorney, the wife, or the husband—none 
should be permitted to conceal a crime or the 
party who committed it, under drastic penal¬ 
ties. None should be considered so high or so 
low that they could be excused from giving evi- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 101 


dence in criminal cases, no matter how they 
gained the knowledge. Our criminal practice 
is sadly in need of revision. Even in notorious 
and confessed cases the procedure is illogical 
and clumsy, vicious and dilatory and all in 
favor of the criminal. In criminal cases, if 
the defendant is to be tried for a second offense, 
a jury should be denied and he or she should be 
tried by the court only. It is all right to give 
the defendant a jury trial for the first offense, 
but when the defendant persists in wayward¬ 
ness it is nothing more than right for society 
to have an equal chance with the criminal. 
The criminal cares nothing for society. Then 
why should society be over anxious to give him 
a chance to go scot free by the aid of a sym¬ 
pathetic jury—one which has given its decision 
upon the fluent utterances of the criminal’s at¬ 
torney and not upon the evidence? The court 
would not likely be deluded in any such man¬ 
ner. The habitual criminal class should be, to 
some extent, under the surveillance of the med¬ 
ical fraternity, so that if it is a disease that 
medical science can cure, they should have the 
opportunity to eventually become trusted mem¬ 
bers of society. Society has an inherent right 


102 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 

to say that the criminal class shall not perpetu¬ 
ate its species, and we should adopt such means 
that to do so would be naturally impossible. 
If criminality is a disease, then it is liable to 
go from father to son; hence, such an one 
should never have been allowed to have had a 
son. If the criminally inclined were taught 
what they might expect before the crime had 
been committed many would desist from doing 
so, especially if we so change our laws that 
there could be no excuse for him or her to do 
so to gain a living. You can depend upon it 
that when we cease to make so many million¬ 
aires as we have been, and divide the incre¬ 
ments pro rata between all those who help to 
create them, it will give such an impetus to 
business that all our people will find it easy to 
secure profitable employment. Remove the 
very semblance of cause for not being employed 
in some useful avocation and you destroy the 
main excuse for crime. Not only this, but you 
elevate the morale of the whole nation so that 
the criminal class will get no sympathy from 
any quarter save that of their own class. 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 103 


OATH. 

No person should be required to take an oath 
to do or not to do, to tell or not to tell any¬ 
thing under any circumstances—except those 
imbeciles who will not testify truthfully with¬ 
out it, but false testimony should never be 
condoned, but rigid punishment should be 
meted out to a false testifyer. Such should be 
disbarred from ever after being allowed to 
cast a vote or holding any office, and for a sec¬ 
ond offense they should be banished from the 
nation, and where it occurs in suits for dam¬ 
ages, they should be holden to the aggrieved 
party for double the amount of the damages 
lost in consequence thereof. In criminal cases 
the false testifyer should be given twice the 
penalty that the criminal would have received 
had it not been for the false testimony of the 
witness. A few doses of this kind of medicine 
would soon completely clarify the atmosphere 
in that direction. Where an attorney has per¬ 
suaded a witness to testify falsely he should 
be disbarred from the practice of law and 
banished from the nation so that we could be 
sure he could not tamper with justice again. 


104 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


These suggestions may seem harsh and cruel, 
but we have pondered over them a long time 
and feel justified in being severe to this class 
of offenders. Time and again criminals of the 
worst class have been turned loose upon so¬ 
ciety by proving an alibi through false testi¬ 
mony which originated in the fertile brain of 
the attorney or some villain of like character 
of the criminal’s aider and abettor. We would 
not throw anything in the way of an innocent 
party, nor would we attempt to give such an 
one cause to think that society condemned him 
without a fair trial, but we would hold the 
habitual criminal to a strict interpretation of 
the law. 

INDICTMENTS BY GRAND JURY. 

Our grand jury system should be abolished 
and instead thereof there should be elected for 
the purpose of bringing indictments a board of 
three highly qualified lawyers. They should 
be well versed in criminal law and practice 
and should not be under thirty-five years of 
age at the time of their election. They should 
have the right to call in the party or parties 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 105 


whom it was intended to indict if they thought 
it expedient to do so. There is a great deal 
of humbug connected with our grand jury 
system and society is unnecessarily taxed by 
this initiatory procedure of mediaeval times. 
Trained lawyers would know if the evidence 
was sufficient to convict. We should eliminate 
the probabilities of the county being in error 
as far as in our power to do so, because it 
would save expense to the county and suspect 
alike. Society has no more right to cast a 
cloud over the fair name of one of its mem¬ 
bers than an individual has, and such a board 
as has been suggested would seldom err in their 
findings. They should draw all indictments; 
issue warrants to the sheriff and declare the 
amount of the bond and take it or commit to 
jail, in murder cases, or hold for trial as the 
case may be. This would relieve the court in a 
great measure in large cities where time is of 
great consideration. Even if it was necessary 
to pay these experts in the law as much as the 
grand jury now costs, the county would save 
money because less indictments would be found 
and less expense be incurred than under our 
present system. The reason that a board of 


106 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


three is suggested instead of one is that it would 
savor of one man power; nor would one be apt 
to give the subject matter that unbiased con¬ 
sideration that three would. There is another 
consideration to be taken into account that 
outweighs all others of money, expedition and 
justice, and that is in criminal cases the trial 
jury has the right to judge the law and the 
facts, that is to say, that if the lawmaking 
power had had the evidence before them as the 
jury had, that the law would not have been 
made as it was. Law is specific and demands 
a penalty for its infraction, but in criminal 
cases it often occurs to the jury that if the evi¬ 
dence produced in the case on hearing had 
been known to the lawmaking power, they 
would have made an exception in this case. 
Now, it is humane that the power to suspend 
the rigor of the law in the case should reside 
somewhere—we leave it to the jury and expert 
lawyers would not be apt to indict where such 
evidence would in all probability be produced 
—especially while they had the right to call 
the accused party before them to be better in¬ 
formed before indictment was issued. 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 107 


PRACTICE. 

The form of practice both in law and at 
equity should be simplified and compressed into 
reasonable bounds. The most direct and expe¬ 
ditious way to get at the facts in all cases of 
litigation should be the command of every 
judge and the practice of every lawyer, but the 
reverse seems to be the general rule at present. 
Perhaps when we attach a salary to every of¬ 
ficer and clerk and discontinue every perqui¬ 
site those who have the labor to perform will 
find a way to abbreviate procedure and enroll¬ 
ment into concrete form and not leave out any 
of the material facts in the matter at issue. 
Every state has a practice act and it is ex¬ 
tremely doubtful if any two of them are alike, 
while the United States has another that could 
be remodeled without doing the courts any in¬ 
jury or litigants any harm, but as we propose 
to do away with state laws and practice, we will 
have only to deal with the practice in courts 
of the nation. Much good could be done for 
litigants if the plaintiff’s attorney could sum¬ 
mon the defendant to get his attorney and all 
parties together in an informal way and talk 


108 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


over the differences. In a case of this kind 
each of the principal parties to the contro¬ 
versy should be considerd as on neutral 
ground, no matter where they may meet. Yes, 
we would suggest that either party should 
have the right to call in a peace officer to in¬ 
sure decorum while the subject matter is being 
gone over. This would in many instances set¬ 
tle the dispute and save the county many law¬ 
suits and suit expenses. Lawyers are like other 
men, braver when they are alone with their 
client than they are when confronted by an¬ 
other attorney equally as well versed in the 
law as they. We think litigants would find 
this course equally as. satisfactory as appealing 
to the court to adjudicate their differences, and 
surely less expensive in a great many cases. 
Here they could settle their misunderstandings 
without jeopardizing any of their respective 
rights—both attorneys would have a clearer 
insight into the subject matter after the confer¬ 
ence and if honest to their client would advise 
a settlement of the difference amicably. This 
kind of initiatory would be apt to relieve the 
courts of an immense amount of litgation and 
the county a large sum of money. We are not 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 109 


sure but in some states this kind of procedure 
is in practice but what we want is for the na¬ 
tion to adopt it and also to simplify court pro¬ 
cedure to the utmost limit for the mutual inter¬ 
est of litigants and society. Those who will 
demur to this cannot have the interest of so¬ 
ciety in view, but rather a sordid selfish inter¬ 
est to subserve, therefore their wishes and de¬ 
nunciations should have but little weight in a 
matter of such grave import to the general pub¬ 
lic. If other branches of investive science were 
hedged about with such practice as that of the 
law practice, radioactivity would not be known 
and used to-day nor many other useful discov¬ 
eries that science has disclosed and made useful 
to man. But, says one, how are you going to 
simplify the practice of the law T procedure? 
The lawyer will not formulate it for you and 
the court feels no inclination to perform the 
task. Grant that both these parties are disin¬ 
clined to do so upon their own initiatory, then 
we will offer a reward for the most simple, 
practical, and condensed formula to be pro¬ 
duced, and demand that the Congress enact it 
into law. This would set more brains to think¬ 
ing among the legal class than ever before. 


110 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


When the whole people demand a reform, there 
is always enough to come forward to perform 
the duty, especially if a generous reward is in 
sight when the work is completed. Never fear. 

OFFICIAL ARROGANCE. 

Sad as it may seem to the normal mind, and 
improbable as it may look to such an one, of¬ 
ficial arrogance is a subject the people should 
take cognizance of before it reaches greater 
proportions. It crops out in civil, military, and 
naval officialdom to a greater or less degree, 
and woe to the self-respected person who has 
to bear with the insolence of these self-sufficient 
officials. One has to lose, for the time being, his 
self-respect and curb his just resentment to 
keep from annihilating such an one on the spot. 
We suppose that the civil, military, and naval 
service could be performed to our entire satis¬ 
faction without employing these official arro- 
gants. We cannot conceive of any position in 
which it is absolutely necessary to have an ar¬ 
rogant to gain an ideal service, and for that 
reason would suggest that arrogance in an of¬ 
ficial when proven should disqualify the arro- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 111 


gant from holding any office either civil, 
military, or naval in the service of the govern¬ 
ment or municipality. If a person cannot prac¬ 
tice affability and courtesy in an official ca¬ 
pacity then he should be disbarred from hold¬ 
ing any office. Again, to be an arrogant is to 
disclose a want of normal development that of 
itself should disqualify one for the proper per¬ 
formance of the duties of any office. A sum¬ 
mary way should be provided to dispense with 
the services of such an one at once. Urbanity, 
suavity and patience should be essentials of an 
officer. We think this subject is so patent that 
the people need not be further urged to find a 
way to destroy the evil in all quarters of our 
service. A constitutional disqualification 
would soon rid our service of those undesirable 
persons. Can we have it? 

SUPERSTITION. 

In the common law, there are principles set 
forth that are founded upon superstition or at 
least there is no way to prove to a sane and in¬ 
quisitive mind that they have any tangible prin¬ 
ciple to stand upon, but nevertheless they are 


112 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


carried along from generation to genera¬ 
tion, and ever and anon are used as a prece¬ 
dent to base some decision upon—they should 
be eliminated from the common law. If we 
would by constitutional amendment give the 
judiciary the right to declare them obsolete or 
void, it would not take long before they would 
not be taking up the time of the courts or an¬ 
noying our citizens.- We might go farther and 
state that many statutes are liable to the same 
criticism, and not be far from the truth. Too 
many statutes are enacted at the solicitation 
of some self-constituted body which is based 
upon some single idea. These one-idead people 
perhaps expect to cure all existing evils by a 
statutory provision. They predicate their de¬ 
mands on self-conclusions formulated where it 
would be considered sacrilegious to offer a neg¬ 
ative, and they so persistently force their ideas 
upon the majority of the committee having 
their bill under advisement that the bill passes 
and the panacea becomes a part of the law of 
the land and the judicary is called upon to en¬ 
force it. Then for the first time the enormity 
of the act is disclosed. Now it is found that 
the only warrant for enacting this superstitious 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 113 


statute is to be found in the disorganized brain 
of this self-constituted body of busybodies. The 
courts say it has no power to annul the law— 
all the power it has is to carry it into execution. 
Go to the legislative body if you want it re¬ 
pealed. Now, if the judge were satisfied that 
the basic principle of the statute under which 
the action was brought was superstition, he 
should have the right to so declare, and that 
decision render the statute nugatory and void. 
What, compel a just and upright judge to exe¬ 
cute a superstitious law! Would you go back 
to the days of witchcraft? Do we want the 
court’s time taken up to no good purpose? 
Then why not empower the court to shield so¬ 
ciety from the acts of superstition? No place 
else would the affirmative and negative have 
more consideration or be more liable to come to 
a just conclusion. Volumes could be written 
to amplify and sustain our position, but we 
will desist and leave that to others. 

THE UNION. 

And now we come to that part of our sub¬ 
ject where we can see the wide-mouthed, lim- 


114 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


ber-tongued orator, vibrating in every muscle 
and anxious to devour us without the formality 
of mastication—he of the kind that is easy to 
explode. This animated disturber of the air 
seldom waits to consider a subject, but attacks 
it with all the ferocity of his nature, if he 
thinks his auditors will be led to believe that 
their inalienable rights are in jeopardy. But 
we have anticipated all this and more too, and 
yet expect to succeed. 

We do not intend to destroy the-union of our 
people, but to complete the union and make 
one nation out of all the people who hold al¬ 
legiance to these United States. Our purpose 
is to give the voter a more direct rein upon 
his representative than he ever has enjoyed. 
It is true we wish to do away with state laws 
and state functions, but we wish to give each 
person of twenty-one years of age who has 
lived in the nation twenty-one years the right 
to have a voice as to who shall hold office of 
any kind, and, to do away with bossism, we 
propose that all the electors shall by vote nom¬ 
inate those whom they wish to vote for, pro¬ 
vided they pass a successful examination show¬ 
ing they are qualified to fill the office they are 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 115 


nominated for. We desire to have this nation 
as democratic as possible, but as we are too 
numerous to enact laws directly by the people, 
we must adopt the next best alternative and 
elect all our officers by a direct vote of the peo¬ 
ple. By this method we retain a greater 
amount of sovereignty than we now enjoy in 
the various states. And we propose to termi¬ 
nate the official rights of any officer when a rea¬ 
sonable majority of his constituents think it is 
to their interest to do so. This would not ex¬ 
tend to the Exchequer because their fiduciary 
trust is of such a nature that we think it not 
advisable. Their body will be sufficiently large 
to insure judicious management, and yet not 
so large that they could not work in harmony. 

Our country passed through a civil war that 
caused the death of millions of our people and 
cost billions of money and property to save the 
union, and we don’t want any more of that 
kind of statesmanship to try men’s souls or 
pockets, either, for that matter. We propose 
to make our people more homogeneous, happy, 
and companionable. We wish to elevate, to 
consolidate, to unify every and all our people 


116 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


for the individual and collective good and the 
nation’s glory. 


NORTH AMERICA. 

The boundary which divides the British pos¬ 
sessions from the United States on the north 
is for the most part an invisible line. The peo¬ 
ple of both subdivisions to a great extent are 
homogeneous. What actuates, propels, and en¬ 
ergizes those of one section finds a duplicate in 
the other. They intermarry as readily as do 
the people of the several states and it is not 
thought to be unusual in any sense. Aside 
from having different forms of government, 
they are as one people and are becoming united 
in their ideas as to government economics as 
fast as the people of the respective states. The 
boundary line has to be officially watched to 
keep the people from exchanging commodities 
as freely as they have a right to do in their 
own political subdivisions. Of course, this 
causes, to a greater or less extent, an official 
friction between the two governments, but the 
people of both elude the officials without com¬ 
punction, and never allude to it in their sup- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 117 


plications. Neither consider they have com¬ 
mitted a sin of that magnitude that they should 
implore divine forgiveness. Now, do you think 
these people will forever keep up two political 
governments? It is unreasonable to expect it. 
We have no sinister designs upon Canada and 
need not have, for all we have to do is to make 
our government more perfect and the citizens 
of that country will come to us without our 
solicitation or connivance. If we improve our 
opportunities by advancing our civil and eco¬ 
nomic system by adopting the reforms hereto¬ 
fore suggested, they—the whole people—will 
find a peaceable way to join us politically. 
The Anglo-Saxon race has advanced to that 
degree of enlightenment that they can create 
ways and means to an end of consolidation 
without a resort to war. 

England would not wish to hold Canada if a 
large part of the Canadians desired to unite 
with our government. What is best for the 
whole people would be considered as commer¬ 
cially best for England. While we will always 
hold aloof from any entangling alliance with 
any European power, we could not stand idly 
by and see England destroyed. We could not 


118 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


do so to-day, much less when Canada unites 
with us, for we would find some pretext for tak¬ 
ing the part of our mother country. No, the 
Anglo-Saxon race is too firmly united to let 
any other race destroy any branch of the fam¬ 
ily. Let the Canadians convince the English¬ 
man that he preferred to be a part of this na¬ 
tion to that of allegiance to England and he 
will interpose no insurmountable barrier to 
the consummation of the union. But we must 
show England and Canada that we have a 
more equitable and just system of political 
freedom before either will seriously consider 
any coalescing tendencies. Nature has joined 
all North America in one compact body and 
given it such a diversity of climate, soil, and 
mineral deposits that a homogeneous people 
could procure and create all the necessities of 
life for a great many millions of people to live 
happy, contented and prosperous. Will man 
do his part in imitating nature in this respect? 
We think he will, and that much sooner than 
is generally expected. 

PERORATION. 

Reader, we do not claim credit for originat- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 119 


ing all the ideas that have been suggested, but 
the central ideas and nearly all the auxiliaries 
have originated from a contemplation reaching 
back for the last forty years on the subjects. 
We have criticised them and numerous others 
that from time to time have suggested them¬ 
selves to our consideration. True, during that 
time we have often conceived an idea that for 
a time we thought would solve the problem that 
we found afterwards only thin air, nor did we 
ever find upon studying those ideas any way 
to form a system until we finally took into con¬ 
sideration our complex governmental systems 
as they now exist. From that time on to this 
all that had to be considered was how to pre¬ 
sent the subjects so as to awaken a patriotic 
interest in the minds of our people, feeling con¬ 
fident they would make any reasonable sacri¬ 
fice of their preconcerted notions to eradicate 
the imperfection of our unscientific political 
system that might be asked of them in a patri¬ 
otic spirit. 

In bygone days we had hoped to be finan¬ 
cially able to hire the best literary talent the 
country has produced and rewrite the Consti¬ 
tution of the Federal Government and send 


120 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


copies to every school teacher in the United 
States, with the request that they get the adults 
of their district to sign the same and remail it 
to us. Then we would have had documentary 
evidence of the wants and desires of the people 
of that conclusive character that the Congress 
would have passed the necessary resolution so 
that the states would have readily confirmed 
the wish of the people. But life is full of dis¬ 
appointments, and death is sure, so to our 
amazement our hair became white, our step 
slow and measured, our blood lethargic and our 
memory erratic, while our finances were only 
in the mind. One reason for our financial in¬ 
ability to do as we had intended is that this 
subject would come up and command atten¬ 
tion when a financial opportunity offered, and, 
sad to confess, we were not double-minded 
enough to carry on the two in conjunction, so 
you see, if we have any part in reorganizing 
the fundamental principles of our organic law, 
this is the only avenue left open to us—it may 
prove the best for the people, and if so, we 
will be the happiest of mortals. If our people 
can be convinced that we have offered a solu¬ 
tion that is likely to better our condition, we 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 121 


feel that they will not be slow to put it into 
execution. Not until we got the idea of creat¬ 
ing another co-ordinate branch of the govern¬ 
ment could we suggest any improvement in the 
law that was not open to serious criticism, but 
from the very day this idea took hold of our 
meditations the task has been easy. The Con¬ 
gress will never adopt it unless the people in 
their sovereign capacity demand it in unmis¬ 
takable tones. Let us look at the possibilities 
of this new departure. No combinations of 
men or interests could ever get a death grip 
upon the wealth of the republic. No combina¬ 
tion of interests and capital could dictate to 
the nation its policy, nor any class be unified 
and inimical to the interest of the individual 
or the nation. Knowledge and cleverness could 
not filch from the ignorant and poor, nor could 
any combination, trust, or merger be intro¬ 
duced, operated, or carried on that could in 
any way enslave our people on land or sea. 
The Exchequer would be the great balance 
wheel that would keep the energies of our 
people forever revolving for the good of male 
and female alike all over our whole country. 
The opportunities to create large wealth would 


122 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


be a thing of the past. We would not de¬ 
stroy individuality, but we would gently limit 
it by reasonable bounds. All our citizens who 
exercise a reasonable effort would be insured 
a decent and respectable living without work¬ 
ing the very life out of them to get it. The 
large dividends that now go to make a few 
very rich would be distributed among those 
who helped to create it, and, as they would be 
numerous, the public would have an increase 
of business far beyond anything they have re¬ 
alized heretofore. This would advance our in¬ 
tellectual and material prosperity far beyond 
that of any nation on the globe and it would 
elevate the masses from poverty and want to 
self-respect and comfort. 

Too often prosperity leads to dissipation and 
profligacy, but we have forestalled the former 
possibility by giving the Exchequer the sole 
right to manufacture and retail intoxicants. 
This will do more to make us a temperate peo¬ 
ple than all the temperance societies that have 
ever been formed. It is the abuse of intoxi¬ 
cants that has been a curse to our people, not 
the temperate use of them. If ten per cent of 
the funds that have been used in the temper- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 123 


ance cause had been intelligently used to the 
end we have outlined, drunkenness would long 
since have ceased. Why the temperance advo¬ 
cates ignore the good intoxicants have done in 
the world for the humankind is one of the un¬ 
explainable things we never could compre¬ 
hend ; however, we think they will give us 
some support, because we advocate female suf¬ 
frage and giving them the same pay as men. 
We could never believe that one person, on 
account of sex, should receive more pay for the 
same labor than another. It always looked in¬ 
equitable and unjust, and as all our suggestions 
are based upon equitable grounds and the the¬ 
ory that all our citizens—both male and female 
—are endowed with equal rights and privileges, 
<ve must contend that the ballot be given to 
females to the same extent as to males of 
twenty-one years of age. This of course made 
it necessary to find some other way than the 
present mode to cast our ballots, so we adopted 
that of voting through the Post Office in dupli¬ 
cate form. If our female suffragists will in¬ 
dorse the ideas set forth herein they will find 
that they can realize what they have been con¬ 
tending for much easier and quicker than they 


124 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


can to continue their agitation on the lines they 
have adopted. We have another reason for in¬ 
corporating the female into the body politic 
that is of far reaching importance. The female 
has a more direct way of getting at a proposi¬ 
tion than the male. With the male precedence 
goes a great way, but not so with the female— 
she sees a direct way out of a dilemma quicker 
than we do, and proceeds in a direct line until 
she has accomplished her desire and let prece¬ 
dence go to the wind. 

Many of our laws have for their basic princi¬ 
ple superstition, and should be repealed. Men 
will not be half as apt to take the initiatory in 
repealing them as women would. As an illus¬ 
tration, we remember that during the Spanish- 
American war the government sent a lot of 
wounded and sick soldiers not far from New 
York without providing proper provision for 
the men. Miss Helen Miller Gould heard of 
their condition and on investigation supplied 
them necessities and gave them necessaries and 
delicacies immediately. No red tape for her— 
humanity was suffering and she stopped it as 
far as human power could by immediate action. 
Will we never learn that we are naturally too 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 125 


clumsy to have the whole charge of humanity? 
Are we so puffed up and proud that we cannot 
understand that women are co-equal with men ? 
Our actions say that old nature did not know 
his business when he created woman. Miss 
Gould showed more sense, more humanity, 
more generosity than all officialdom, civil, mili¬ 
tary, and naval did on that occasion. She did 
it because it was the right thing to do. She 
saw suffering and her good sense and ample 
means were set in motion before a man could 
get ready to think how to act or what to do. 
If man labored under the same disabilities po¬ 
litically that woman does, do you think they 
would be as bright as they are. We do not, and 
for that reason and the further one that it is 
justice to give them the same political rights 
men enjoy, we advocate it with all the energy 
of our nature. We are not so egotistical as to 
think we have suggested all the ideas that 
could be formulated into sections as amend¬ 
ments to the Federal Constitution with advan¬ 
tage to our people, nor do we suppose that we 
are the only parties who have given those sub¬ 
jects which we have suggested thought. If 
the secular press will take up the subjects the 


126 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


people will be surprised to find how many oth¬ 
ers have been forced to like conclusions. Per¬ 
haps something better may be offered, and if 
so we are willing to withdraw ours and will en¬ 
thusiastically do all we can to forward the 
movement to adopt the other. It is results we 
want and not theories. 

Every once in a while some advocate belches 
forth some one idea that he claims will bring 
the millennium immediately, but practical men 
soon decide the reformer has not properly con¬ 
sidered the multitudinous interests involved, 
and they turn away—we hope we do not come 
under that class of advocates. What we com¬ 
plain of is continuing our complex political 
system that should have long since been rele¬ 
gated to history—it is clumsy; it is expensive; 
it is worn out; its days of usefulness have long 
since passed. It ought to give place to a sim¬ 
ple, just system. Why should we wait longer? 
If the politicians have any patriotism in them 
they will formulate these ideas or create better 
ones, into proper articles and sections and 
make them a part of the Constitution. They 
will do it if the people demand and force them 
and not otherwise. If the people all over the 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 127 


country will form societies and debate these 
live subjects the politician will see the hand¬ 
writing on the wall and go to work at once. 
If we were financially able it would not take us 
long to have this matter under discussion in 
every community throughout the land, but we 
are not and never expect to be, so don’t fear, 
Mr. Politician, for otherwise you might well 
shudder. Those who can look with equanimity 
upon the organizing of employes all over North 
America on the one hand and the employers on 
the other and not know T there is something 
wrong with the body politic, are stolid, indeed. 
Is it reasonable to believe that these parties 
would so antagonize each other if each did not 
believe the other was seeking an undue advan¬ 
tage? They both form unions because they 
don’t know any better. They both act silly and 
they have not sense enough to see it. They are 
both foolish and don’t know it. One is the 
forerunner of the banditti while the other 
courts destruction. They must both be brought 
to a realization that they live in a civilized 
country that will see justice given to all. The 
moral cowards must give way—they must stop 
their dictation, their waste, their murder and 


128 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


their arson. They have the audacity to threaten 
the government with oblivion. We cannot and 
will not forever let them menace our fair land. 
They shall be made to listen to reason and do 
what is right between man and man. Free 
men will not stand for interdict unless they 
themselves are the authors. These two parties 
cost the general public in cash every year 
more than it would take to remodel our laws 
so we can make them work in peace the balance 
of their days. Who will start the crusade to 
destroy these two disturbing elements ? Neither 
life or property is secure while we tolerate 
these two opposing parties. Many of both 
parties will hail the day the doom of their asso¬ 
ciations is heard, but a measly few of both will 
die fighting to the last when the nation pro¬ 
claims them outlaws. Shall we freemen allow 
self-constituted bodies to usurp the preroga¬ 
tives of the nation, and make laws inim¬ 
ical to those of the government, and not crush 
them to dust? Both of you beware how you 
trample under your feet the rights of an in¬ 
dulgent government—the people. The best 
thing you both can do is to about face and 
aid in amplifying the law so both your interests 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 129 


will be protected. Remember that a part is 
never as great as the whole. Yes, remember 
the military is always stronger than the mob 
and be wise before it is too late. Have you 
in your blind career no thought of your 
families’ future? History shows us that all 
such associations as yours are quite humble 
until they become numerous and wealthy, and 
then they become overbearing, erratic, and 
finally oppressive. The idea of any self-con¬ 
stituted body abridging the rights of a free 
people. It is too monstrous to be tolerated any 
longer. All this is sufficiently plain to those 
interested parties in both associations for them 
to understand and pause. What has been 
written herein that you can take exception to 
and make you rather continue in your present 
unlawful course than to help unify the nation 
for the common good of all our people? The 
idea that you can dictate in secret what a free 
people shall do and. how they shall do it, or 
you will pummel or murder them, is a little 
too autocratic to be tolerated longer. Remem¬ 
ber that we are a nation in the minds of the 
people at large and that they never will allow 
any association to get strong enough to de- 


130 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


stroy it—that was tried once and signally 
failed. 

No association of persons has any moral or 
legal right to intimidate, maltreat, maim, mur¬ 
der, or blacklist any person for doing or not 
doing any legal act whatsoever in the United 
States, and never will have. It is against the 
common law and the spirit of the Declaration 
of Independence, and every Constitution in 
the United States. Cowards and imbeciles 
alone will resort to that kind of illegality. 
Which class do you wish, to be known by, Mr. 
Association Man ? 

During the civil war there was an association 
formed and organized in many of the middle 
western states called the Knights of the Golden 
Circle, one object of which was to burn Chi¬ 
cago and liberate the Confederate prisoners 
confined in Camp Douglas, etc. The President 
—A. Lincoln—gave several of the militia gen¬ 
erals furloughs that they might come North 
and arouse the people to a realization of the 
danger this “fire-in-the-rear” movement fore¬ 
cast if it was not blotted out at once for the 
Union’s success. Those generals that came 
handled the subject without gloves. The Union 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 131 


League was formed, and before the conspira¬ 
tors had time to put their nefarious plot into 
execution, they became convinced that every 
one of them would be shot or hung if they 
made the attempt. Conspirators are generally 
cowards—very few are desperadoes. Cannot 
these two latter-day associations take warning 
from the Golden Circle’s fate? Thousands of 
men were drawn into the Golden Circle that, 
after they saw how public sentiment looked 
upon them, did everything they could to make 
amends, and this is what will happen to these 
two latter-day associations when they see 
where they are being led by designing or imbe¬ 
cile leaders. We offer an easy, practical, just, 
and legal way to settle the whole question 
and have it of universal application while all 
retain their individual freedom—no fair man 
will ask for more. One dollar apiece from 
these warring parties would cover all the cost 
necessary to remodel the Constitution and set 
the various departments in working order. 

One reason these subjects have never been 
acted upon is that we have so many men whose 
hands are ever itching to handle public rev¬ 
enues. They are afraid there will not be of- 


132 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


fices enough if anything practical is incor¬ 
porated that will do away with so many poli¬ 
tical positions. We know of but one way to 
better our political position and that is to 
formulate what we want and elect men pledged 
to adopt that formula into the organic law of 
the land—the Constitution. 

We appeal to the teachers of our common 
schools to discuss the principles this work con¬ 
tains, before their pupils, having full confidence 
in their ability to so impress our ideas upon 
the minds of the young that they will not be 
totally lost if the present adult generation does 
not improve the present opportunity to put 
them into execution. We have discussed these 
subjects with a great many persons and have 
received their assurance that they would sup¬ 
port them to a greater or less extent, but that 
we could never induce the political class to 
adopt them. We think we have shown how to 
deal with them so they will be only too glad 
to make the movement an accomplished fact. 
Most politicians have families and none know 
better than they that office-holding seldom 
runs from father to son, so that, if anything, 
they should take advantage of their position 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 133 


to give their offspring as sure a possibility to 
gain a livelihood as they could by improving 
their opportunities to do so. One of the short¬ 
comings of our people is that they do not take 
sufficient active interest in the nomination of 
that class of men who are the least likely to 
come forward and work for their nomination. 
If we were compelled to write our preference 
for nominees in duplicate form and send one 
to our nearest Post Office and the other to the 
next nearest, so that when they came to take 
them to the county seat to be counted they 
could be verified by the duplicates, we would 
be more apt to vote for those only who we 
thought were qualified to fill the position with 
credit to themselves and satisfaction to us. 
The postal carriers could easily canvass the 
domiciles of the voters to verify their right to 
vote. By this method electioneering as now 
carried on would be so laborious that but little 
of it would be done. 

We firmly believe that one of the most just 
and equitable modes of getting revenue for 
public purposes is a graduated income tax. 
The only way to make this possible is by a con¬ 
stitutional amendment. We have read a great 


134 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


many articles against an income tax, but to 
our mind none of them appeared logical, but 
of those written to sustain the income tax, we 
have read many articles that had the ring of 
justice from start to finish. When the nation 
does all the banking and insurance, the main 
argument against this tax will be taken away 
from the advocates of no tax on incomes, name¬ 
ly, the prying into one’s business. We gen¬ 
erally take plenty of time to consider any 
subject of the import this has, especially when 
our United States Supreme Court has declared 
an income tax unconstitutional, and would not 
advocate it if our judgment did not decide in 
the affirmative. A nation that makes it possi¬ 
ble for one of its citizens to make an abnormal 
profit through its indulgence should be entitled 
to its seigniorage—who could better afford to 
pay? 

We turn now to that class who are called the 
great captains of industry, in all its ramifica¬ 
tions, and in the start we will say that we ex¬ 
pect to receive more encouragement from this 
class of our fellow beings, who will take the 
time to read this book, than any other class of 
our citizens. We know you lead a very busy 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 135 


and laborious life; we also know that many of 
you have given the subject we have been writ¬ 
ing on deep thought, yes, anxious meditation, 
but you never got a satisfactory solution 
to your reveries. With your quick, intui¬ 
tive perspection, you can readily believe 
that we have been pondering over this 
subject for forty years, much easier than can 
one out of thousands of your employes. You 
will believe us when we tell you that we have 
not suggested all the reforms we would like 
to—only those few which are sure to start us 
in the right direction as a nation. None know 
better than you that in the initiatory of a sub¬ 
ject of the magnitude of this it is highly neces¬ 
sary to eliminate the brilliant surface minds— 
those which flash like a spark from an elec¬ 
tric street lamp—from leadership. You know 
this subject must have calm, deep thought and 
painstaking meditation. We know that the 
change of national administration has at times 
cost our people hundreds of millions in Ameri¬ 
can money that might not have been but of 
nominal effect if we had possessed a system 
like the one here outlined. You have seen 
those who did not take in sail at the first swell 


136 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


of the human tide, go under never to rise again 
on the ocean of commerce. We know the first 
to feel any disturbance in the economics of the 
business world are the active multimillionaires, 
then the millionaires, and so on down to the 
poorest among us. Among your number we 
have many acquaintances, and often we have 
called upon them when we pitied their condi¬ 
tion. There they sat surrounded by a busy 
set of employes who were working out the 
plans coming from a tired brain, an over¬ 
worked brain—a brain that was soon to col¬ 
lapse. They knew we pitied them and it proved 
a tonic for a while. Human nature has metes 
and bounds beyond which we cannot go. Some 
are dead that should be alive and would be if 
we were not bound to this baronical, feudal 
system that drives one to be a millionaire or a 
bankrupt if he engages in a competitive busi¬ 
ness. Merger would do much to prolong life 
in those engaged in business, but our United 
State Supreme Court says that merger is un¬ 
lawful, hence we need a constitutional provis¬ 
ion to make it possible to save life and do busi¬ 
ness upon economic principles. 

You can appreciate the necessity of paying 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 137 


the members of the Exchequer a good, round 
salary, and therefore you can see why they 
should be prohibited from continuing in or be¬ 
coming connected in any commercial enterprise 
whatever, either directly or indirectly, during 
the life of their official incumbency. 

Here is a chance for Mr. Carnegie to work 
out his ideas for the betterment of the people 
of this republic. If he is correctly reported 
in the press, he thinks it the greatest problem 
of this age. His ample means would enable 
him to soon make it an accomplished fact. 

You may say, with truth, too, that even what 
we have offered if put into operation would 
not give us a scientific political system. This 
we freely grant, but we affirm that it would 
start us upon the road to a just system, and 
that throughout the periodical constitutional 
convention we would in a few decades reach a 
system—while growing up with it—one that 
would better our race and their condition many 
fold. Our position in life has not given us—for 
the want of funds—all the opportunities that 
should be enjoyed to make us familiar with all 
the abuses that may need correction. If such 
as you will give your influence toward getting 


138 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


the press to prepare the minds of the general 
public to adopt our ideas or formulate others 
that are better, you will have not been born in 
vain. 

If the monied class would finance this move¬ 
ment they would do more real, practical good 
for our people in the near future than all the 
eleemosynary institutions among us. 

TREASON. 

Some of our over-timid fellow citizens fear 
that if we go to meddling with the organic law 
of the states, or that of the United States, that 
we might be arrested and tried for treason. 
To those over-cautious souls, we refer to 
Article III. of Section 3, of the Constitution 
of the United States of America, which reads 
as follows: “Treason against the United States 
shall consist only in levying war against them, 
or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid 
and comfort. No person shall be convicted of 
treason unless on the testimony of two wit¬ 
nesses to the same overt act, or on confession 
in open court.” And this constitution says: 
“We, the people, etc., etc., do ordain and estab- 


THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 139 


lish this Constitution for the United States of 
America.” No, there is nothing in this fear 
that should disturb the equanimity of the most 
timid patriot. The fact is that as the citizens 
of these United States we are all sovereigns 
and could legally create, ordain, and establish 
a single constitution for our government by 
any mode of procedure we might choose to 
adopt, and it would become the organic law of 
the nation from the hour the majority of our 
people subscribed thereto. This power resides 
in our individual sovereignty, and as a free 
people we have a perfect recognized right to 
make a new Constitution in any manner or at 
any time, without leave or license other than 
the will of the majority of our citizens. Will 
we do it? 

Now, reader, we will leave the subject with 
you, for your action or inaction, as you decide, 
hoping you will not receive as many rebuffs as 
we have, while we will try to gain a sufficiency 
of this world’s goods to take care of us and 
those we should care for during our declining 
years. 

But if the people think it is advisable to 
furnish the author the money and have the 


140 THE NATIONAL PEACEMAKER 


Federal Constitution rearranged, as heretofore 
indicated, at once, and will give their influence 
toward getting it properly signed, we are will¬ 
ing to undertake the task now. The sooner the 
work is done the better it will be for all our 
people, for not a year rolls by but what we 
waste far more wealth—besides the deaths that 
occur—than it will take to remodel our laws 
so that they would be in harmony with our de¬ 
velopments in other sciences. 

We now make a special request of the clergy 
of all denominations, the public speakers of 
all kinds; the theatrical authors and delinea¬ 
tors; the legal profession and debaters in gen¬ 
eral, as well as the secular and religious press 
to devote thought, time and reflection, both 
meditative and exclamatory, in arousing our 
whole people to act at once on this subject for 
our common good and humanity’s uplifting 
throughout the civilized world. 





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